Directed by Hiroyuki
Okiura and Shinichirô Watanabe
I’ve
never seen the TV series this is a spin-off from, and in general I don’t
like a whole lot of anime, but I was surprised to find I actually
enjoyed ‘Cowboy BeBop: The Movie’. It’s no ‘Akira’ or ‘Spirited Away’,
but ‘Cowboy BeBop’ has an engaging story, interesting characters, and
doesn’t get too bogged down in the minutiae of its sci-fi universe. The
setting is a Mars colonized by humans, and space travel is taken more or
less for granted, but beyond that the characters and situations are
easily relatable to the real world.
Spike, Jet Black,
Faye, and Ed are bounty hunters. When a terrorist attack unleashes a
strange new bio weapon, a huge price is put on the heads of the
perpetrators. Since our heroes are living on instant noodles, they
quickly take note. The small group of terrorists is led by Vincent, an
ex-military man used in government experiments and stripped of his
memories. Vincent isn’t sure if he’s living in the real world or only
dreaming, and plans to unleash the bio weapon in an attempt to “open the
door” to heaven. It’s pretty standard nutso villain stuff, but
Vincent’s character is given a little more depth than your usual sci-fi
baddie, and the viewer can empathize with him a little. There are some
good action scenes, but the story is a bit slow moving at times. Not so
slow that I was bored, but it could have been punched up a little bit.
Thankfully, everything resolves itself in a way that makes sense, ties
up all the loose ends, and won’t leave you scratching your head.
On a technical level,
‘Cowboy BeBop’ gets no complaints. The film has a great look for both
its settings and characters. The animation isn’t quite up to Disney (or
Miyazaki) standards, but is still quite good. The soundtrack of jazz,
blues, techno, and the occasional rock song also adds quite a bit. Both
the American and Japanese voice actors do a good job for the most part,
although the character of Ed sounds obnoxious in either language. I
watched the Japanese language version with subtitles, but the bonus
features used the English dub for the most part. In just the few scenes
I saw there, I noticed several differences in dialogue. It’s your
call, but my recommendation is go with the subtitles. (Bob Ignizio)
This sequel to ‘The Deep Dark Woods’ shows the folks at
Twisted Spine Productions making some definite steps forward.
Unfortunately, it’s hard for me to give this an accurate review because the
version I watched is an unedited, 2 hours plus cut of the film. Since my
main issues with the film are issues of pacing, hopefully the editing
process will fix most of the problems I had with this movie. What I can
tell you is that there’s more of a plot this time, the tone is a little
(though not much) more serious, and for the most part the actors are
better. I especially enjoyed the performances of Gregory J. Lavelle as
Doctor Owen Means, Dave Shurmer as a sexist lawyer, and of course, Mike
Perzl reprising his role as a homicidal park ranger.
The story is that Mike (Michael Hayes), sole survivor
of the massacre in the original ‘The Deep Dark Woods’, has been confined to
a mental hospital ever since. He stands accused of the murder of his
friends from the first film, even though no bodies have ever been found.
Dr. Owen Means has been assigned to psychologically evaluate Mike. He
believes Mike not only to be sane, but probably innocent. To prove his
theory, the Doctor assembles a team to go back to the scene of the crime.
Of course the ranger from the first movie is still out there, and soon
enough the carnage begins again.
On the technical side, the movie is shot and edited
well. The special effects are also fairly well executed for the budget.
There’s no confusing this with a Hollywood production, but for a movie made
for next to nothing it looks pretty professional. While this is by no means
a great film, it does its job of entertaining the target audience; fans of
gory slasher films with goofy humor. There were definitely parts that
dragged and scenes that could have been better, but as I said a lot of that
may be fixed between now and the final, edited version. In the meantime, I
still would recommend this as-is to fans of the original, and anyone who
enjoys low budget horror flicks made with passion. To get a copy, go to the
Twisted Spine website. (Bob
Ignizio)
How
do you take a plot that involves corporate intrigue, high tech internet
porn, sex, and murder and make a boring movie? I’m not sure, but that’s
what happened with ‘Demonlover’. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go
into this flick expecting it to be an exploitation movie. Having seen
one of the director’s previous films, the much more enjoyable ‘Irma Vep’,
I knew this would be kind of artsy and require my full attention. I
paid attention, and for my efforts I was rewarded with a slow moving,
confusing movie in which neither the story nor the characters held my
interest for long.
A conniving executive named Diane (Connie Nielsen)
moves up the corporate ladder by drugging another executive named Karen
(Dominique Reymond). The drugging leads to Karin being kidnapped, and
some important documents in her possession being stolen, all set up by
Diane. The documents concern a deal between the company Karin and Diane
work for, and a company in Japan making 3-D anime porn. There are two
American companies vying for the rights to distribute the Japanese
company’s products, and one of them may or may not also operate a shady
torture porn website. The plot gets further complicated as we learn
that every character in the movie is engaged in double dealing of their
own. By the last act, things have gotten very surreal and hard to
follow, and the conclusion is less than satisfying.
The basic premise of ‘Demonlover’ seems to be that
the people working for profit-minded corporations are soulless,
desensitized automatons willing to do anything to make a buck. In turn,
this has trickled down to the consumer, who now is constantly seeking
something more extreme. Not a bad premise, I just wasn’t thrilled with
the execution. The British anthology film ‘Cradle of Fear’ dealt with
similar material in one of its segments. For all its artsy pretensions
and sheer length, ‘Demonlover’ doesn’t really say much more about the
topic than its shorter counterpart. There is both an ‘R’ rated and an
unrated version of this disc. I haven’t seen the ‘R’ version, but my
guess is that very little is missing, as the only explicit scenes are
brief snippets of some of the anime company’s films, and a couple
seconds of Pay Per View porn on a character’s TV set. (Bob Ignizio)
Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, the little town of
Shamrock, Texas has a beard growing contest. Not just any old beard,
but a Donegal beard, the sort of facial hair preferred by leprechauns
and the Amish, and not too many others. As with ‘Spellbound’, another
documentary about a non-physical competition, the focus here is more on
the competitors than the contest. Richard Smith has entered the
competition every ten years since 1958, and won every time. This
documentary covers the 1998 competition, do Rich is definitely the front
runner. His rivals include last year’s champ Mark Simpson, who’s manner
of speech required that the disc include a “bonus feature” of subtitles
for his comments, only. Then therre’s Bill Howe, over eighty years old,
who has a secret weapon – chlorophyll pills that turn his beard green.
But perhaps Rich’s biggest threat comes from Scotty McAffee, an outsider
blessed with particularly thick and fast growing facial hair. And speed
does play a role, as the contest rules state the beard has to be started
no earlier than January.
‘Growin’ a Beard’ runs just about a half hour long, exactly as long as
it should be. Any longer and it would have overstayed its welcome, any
shorter and you’d feel like something was missing. In order to make up
for the short length of the feature presentation, this disc also
includes director Woolf‘s documentary short subject ‘The 72oz. Steak’,
about a restaurant that will give you a free meal of one big ass steak
with all the trimmings, provided you can eat it all in 30 minutes or
less. There are also deleted scenes, a collection of flubs entitled
“How Not to Make a Documentary”, and a second disc with the complete
soundtrack by The Gourds. All in all, well worth checking out if you
have an interest in quirky Americana. (Bob Ignizio)
I’ve
never seen the TV series this is a spin-off from, and in general I don’t
like a whole lot of anime, but I was surprised to find I actually
enjoyed ‘Cowboy BeBop: The Movie’. It’s no ‘Akira’ or ‘Spirited Away’,
but ‘Cowboy BeBop’ has an engaging story, interesting characters, and
doesn’t get too bogged down in the minutiae of its sci-fi universe. The
setting is a Mars colonized by humans, and space travel is taken more or
less for granted, but beyond that the characters and situations are
easily relatable to the real world. 
This sequel to ‘The Deep Dark Woods’ shows the folks at
Twisted Spine Productions making some definite steps forward.
Unfortunately, it’s hard for me to give this an accurate review because the
version I watched is an unedited, 2 hours plus cut of the film. Since my
main issues with the film are issues of pacing, hopefully the editing
process will fix most of the problems I had with this movie. What I can
tell you is that there’s more of a plot this time, the tone is a little
(though not much) more serious, and for the most part the actors are
better. I especially enjoyed the performances of Gregory J. Lavelle as
Doctor Owen Means, Dave Shurmer as a sexist lawyer, and of course, Mike
Perzl reprising his role as a homicidal park ranger. 
How
do you take a plot that involves corporate intrigue, high tech internet
porn, sex, and murder and make a boring movie? I’m not sure, but that’s
what happened with ‘Demonlover’. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go
into this flick expecting it to be an exploitation movie. Having seen
one of the director’s previous films, the much more enjoyable ‘Irma Vep’,
I knew this would be kind of artsy and require my full attention. I
paid attention, and for my efforts I was rewarded with a slow moving,
confusing movie in which neither the story nor the characters held my
interest for long. 
Every year on St. Patrick’s Day, the little town of
Shamrock, Texas has a beard growing contest. Not just any old beard,
but a Donegal beard, the sort of facial hair preferred by leprechauns
and the Amish, and not too many others. As with ‘Spellbound’, another
documentary about a non-physical competition, the focus here is more on
the competitors than the contest. Richard Smith has entered the
competition every ten years since 1958, and won every time. This
documentary covers the 1998 competition, do Rich is definitely the front
runner. His rivals include last year’s champ Mark Simpson, who’s manner
of speech required that the disc include a “bonus feature” of subtitles
for his comments, only. Then therre’s Bill Howe, over eighty years old,
who has a secret weapon – chlorophyll pills that turn his beard green.
But perhaps Rich’s biggest threat comes from Scotty McAffee, an outsider
blessed with particularly thick and fast growing facial hair. And speed
does play a role, as the contest rules state the beard has to be started
no earlier than January. 