I felt a little ripped-off after I sat through “Street Trash”, to be perfectly honest. I picked up the DVD with the expectation of seeing hobos dissolve themselves with sulfuric acid for an hour and a half. What I got was a movie about hobos waging turf wars with other hobos, a thin detective subplot, some random stuff with a mob boss and vague social commentary about homeless Vietnam War veterans turning to alcohol. Still, when the movie does feature vagrants chugging highly corrosive liquor and melting into puddles of neon goop…holy crap.

Fred (Mike Lackey) and his younger brother Kevin (Marc Sferrazza) are just a couple of homeless guys living in a junkyard. At a local liquor store, the manager uncovers a case of Viper, an ancient-looking alcoholic beverage he’s never heard of but figures he can make a buck on by selling it at bargain bin prices. Little does he know, Viper causes whoever drinks it to instantaneously melt into a puddle of brightly colored slime. Meanwhile, Fred and Kevin find themselves on the bad side of the lunatic Vietnam vet, Bronson (Vic Noto), who rules the junkyard and wants them dead. And while all this is going on, a douchebag cop is out to stop a mobster named Nick Duran (Tony Darrow) from doing evil mobster stuff.

“Street Trash” is a horror comedy that carries on the spirit of a Troma film, but with fractionally superior acting. It’s shamelessly stupid, but that’s what makes it a lot of fun. Hell, the ending song features a guy singing about how much being dissolved by Viper hurts. Can’t go wrong with that.

Unfortunately, “Street Trash” lacks focus. As funny as the Nick Duran subplot was, it was entirely pointless, unnecessary and feels like little more than a waste of your time. The Viper is what is advertised so prominently about the movie and yet it is completely absent from the bulk of the film’s middle section, to the point where you’re left wondering if it’s ever going to resurface again. The real plot of the movie is Fred and Kevin taking on Bronson, the gigantic killer hobo who wants their blood for some reason. The Viper plays a small part in the film’s conclusion but is mostly useless.

Still, as unfocused as “Street Trash” is, at the very least it’s funny. Low-brow funny, sure, but funny never-the-less. It is extremely crass and tries its best to offend all sensibilities wherever possible. And as someone so desensitized to the Universe that I haven’t had a film “offend” me since grade school, I enjoyed it.

“Street Trash” feels like a movie that wanted to tell a different story but decided to throw in a pointless subplot about flesh-eating liquor for no good reason. If you can get past the fact that the film’s main draw is practically a non-entity, you may like it. If you like intentionally bad horror films, anyway.

Grade: C-

Did you know that long before the Sci-Fi Channel drove the sub genre into the ground with bundles of poorly conceived and poorly funded films, “giant killer animal” movies used to actually be pretty good? I know, a difficult concept to fathom, but it’s true! Coming only a few years after the most successful giant killer animal movie of all time, “Jaws”, was Lewis Teague’s “Alligator”, a movie about…a giant alligator. Cast and script aside, the flick has surprisingly good production values and an admirably convincing title monster (the FX are far more convincing than the ones seen in Spielberg’s classic, at any rate). With the film’s recent release on DVD, including remastered audio and picture (lord knows that grainy mono-fest needed it), now is as good a time as any to check out this often overlooked gem.

1968: a baby alligator gets flushed down the toilet and lands in the sewers. Meanwhile, a research firm illegally dumps genetically altered dog corpses down the drain pipes. The alligator feasts on the mutant puppy chow and in twelve years grows to be thirty-six feet long. Now, a cop (Robert Forster) and a reptile expert (Robin Riker) must team-up to stop this gigantic menace as it makes its way above ground and begins eating everything in its path.

I remember as a kid that I always liked the sequel, “Alligator II: the Mutation”, better. Probably because it had a mutant living in the sewers and I was admittedly a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, back in the day. For whatever reason, I never paid much attention to the original installment when it came on TV. I kind of wish I had, in retrospect, as the flick really surprised me.

The effects used on the alligator (affectionately referred to as “Alexander” in the film) really impressed me. I was expecting a bad rubber prop or perhaps some shots of a live alligator walking down a blatantly miniature model city, but to my surprise the former was actually very impressive and the latter was mercifully brief. The alligator prop is remarkably convincing with lots of fluid movements and natural body language. Granted, the majority of the time all you’re really seeing is it’s gigantic maw swinging about, but that’s all you really need to see. Teague’s cinematography is worth a compliment or two, particularly his use of light and shadow in the scenes down in the sewer. One excellent scene involves Robert Forster and his cannon fodder buddy looking at a map as the alligator lurks menacingly just behind them, glimpsed for only a second in a brief flash of light. Very nicely done.

Now on to the bad. As fun as this movie is, there’s no denying it’s a “Jaws” rip-off. Right down to scenes shot through “Alligator-vision” as a melody vaguely similar to the classic “Jaws” theme plays in the background. The movie had enough positive qualities that it could have stood on its own legs without these blatant copycat tactics. Also, outside of Forster and Riker, the cast for the film is brutally painful. I found the police chief to be particularly irritating, though the textbook “evil mayor” and “evil old guy who runs a corporation” got on my nerves fairly quickly, too.

“Alligator” is one giant killer animal movie that’s definitely worth watching. Perhaps it’s not a masterpiece like “Jaws”, but in a genre so jam-packed with the worst garbage made-for-TV film studios have to offer, it’s refreshingly good.

Grade: B-

There’s a chance a lot of you aren’t acquainted with Walt Kelly’s landmark comic series, Pogo the Possum. It has fallen out of the spotlight in recent years, but back in the day it was one of the most popular comics around and one of the earliest to pioneer what’s referred to as “graphic novels” today. Kelly’s influence can even be felt in more contemporary comic books, such as Jeff Smith’s epic series “Bone”. It’s always disappointed me to a small degree that a comic which could lend itself to animation so well has only ever received one cartoon special, and it was nearly forty years ago, at that. Never-the-less, the one animated television special we did receive was remarkably fun and captured the spirit of Walt Kelly’s creations just perfectly.

It’s the Fourth of July at Okefenokee Swamp, and Pogo (June Foray) and friends are ready to celebrate. Or is it Arbor Day? Or Valentine’s Day? Or…Christmas? No one’s really sure; all they know is they want to celebrate a holiday, any holiday. The surly Porky Pine (Chuck Jones) believes it to be Valentine’s Day and tries to express his love to the ravishing Miss Mamselle Hepzibah (June Foray), but she seems to have eyes only for Pogo. Wishing to help his chronically depressed buddy (who also happens to be an orphan), Pogo and friends put together a birthday party in his honor. Of course, Porky misunderstands, leading to an even deeper depression.

Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, Chuck Jones seemed to lend his talents almost exclusively to adaptations. It was around this period that he gave us “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, “The Bear that Wasn’t a Bear at all”, “The Phantom Tollbooth” and, you guessed it, “The Pogo Special Birthday Special”. Jones’ work in this period was very experimental, but his Pogo short seemed to reign in the acid-tripping surrealism a bit, thankfully. Written by creator Walt Kelly, this television special manages to capture most of the charm of the comic and features nearly the entire cast, if only in cameo appearances for some.

Jones’ style of humor is ever-present and fits these characters like a glove. There’s a lot of “fourth wall” gags in the flick which tended to be the funniest. For instance, when a character zooms off into the distance, leaving behind a sound effect in writing, the remaining characters would read it aloud and question its meaning, thoughtfully. Trust me, it’s funnier in action. When the characters aren’t doing any real gags, the charm of the strip and Kelly’s writing really shine through. One thing that made the comics so fun was how the cast would talk in a deep southern dialect of mismatched and misunderstood words and phrases, which is as fun to listen to as it is to read.

The cast for the film was just about perfect. I never knew Chuck Jones actually got behind the mike to do any voice acting, but he plays the depressed and disgruntled Porky Pine without missing a beat. Porky seems to be the real star of the show, with even the title character kind of falling out of the picture as Porky laments over his own short-comings. June Foray, easily the most prolific and accomplished female voice actor in animation history, hits Hepzibah square in the bullseye. In the comic, Hepzibah had this bizarre manner or speaking, where she would combine French and English into the most perplexing and at times incomprehensible sentences. A challenge, to say the least, but Foray totally nails it. Foray also plays Pogo, though she wouldn’t have been my first choice. She’s quite good in the role, but I never really read Pogo as having such a feminine voice. Les Tremayne also comes in strong as Churchy LeFemme, the singing turtle gondolier, while creator Walt Kelly proves he has a voice made for cartoons in addition to his brain, as he voices Howland Owl, Albert and others.

I suppose the one thing absent from this television special that was all-present in the comics is the political commentary. Pogo was never shy about drawing attention to subjects such as environmentalism and the complexities of presidential elections. While “The Pogo Special Birthday Special” is a fun celebration of holidays and a very cute tale, it lacks the depth of the comic series. And that’s one reason why I always wanted more Pogo cartoons. The characters were born for animation and there’s more than enough story there to round out a well-produced cartoon series.

Anyhow, to date, “the Pogo Special Birthday Special” has not been released on DVD and the VHS tape has been out of print for decades. It can be rather hard to come by, but it’s definitely a must for any fan of Pogo or Chuck Jones animation in general.

Grade: B

I discovered H.P. Lovecraft in high school and he became the first author who’s work I actively pursued until I’d read his entire library. So needless to say, I’m a fan. Regrettably, the subjects which Lovecraft wrote about are almost entirely unfilmable, resulting in most movies based on his material to be exceedingly poor (to put it politely). Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna seem to be the best at adapting his tales (though the single best Lovecraft-inspired film, in my opinion, was John Carpentor’s “In the Mouth of Madness”), with Gordon’s “Re-Animator” actually exceeding the quality of the original story. Granted, “Herbert West: Re-Animator” was one of Lovecraft’s more cut-and-dry and less celebrated stories, but it earned him enough credit in my eyes to check out his second Lovecraft adaptation: “From Beyond”.

Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), under the eye of his mentor, the sadistic Dr. Pretorious (Ted Sorel), has created a device that advances the pineal gland of the human brain, allowing one to see the extra dimensions around them. Unfortunately, the spectral creatures inhabiting those dimension are capable of looking back, and after a terrifying encounter which claimed the life of Dr. Pretorious, Tillinghast goes completely nuts. Psychiatrist Dr. Katherine Michaels (Barbara Crampton) wants Tillinghast to recreate the experiment, with a clean bill of mental health being his reward, and along with a police spervisor named Bubba (Ken Foree), the trio returns to the house on Benevolent Street to reactivate the machine. This, of course, leads to disaster, as they encounter the renewed Dr. Pretorious, who has become one with a hideus creature from beyond.

The original seven page short story which this movie was based upon is your standard Lovecraft fiction; basically, it features concepts that absolutely cannot be brought to life by visuals as we understand them. In the original story, the world seen through the extra-dimensional sixth sense was very different and more “mind-blowing” than how it was presented in the film. It was described that all empty space was filled with luminous creatures and even they were filled with universes of other creatures. Obviously, the stop motion flying jellyfish and eels that we got were a far cry from Lovecraft’s intentions. Still, Gordon did his best and actually adapted what he could from the source material fairly well.

The effects in this movie are exceptionally good. The Dr. Pretorious monster is really quite gruesome and it’s constantly fluctuating and mutating form is a real visual treat. I also dug the giant leech in the basement as it reminded me of something from “At the Mountains of Madness”. The movie has finally, at very long last, been released on DVD and with an uncensored Director’s Cut, no less. The movie is very gory, which is just the way I like it. One particular sequence I enjoyed featured the insane Tillinghast sucking the brain out of a woman’s skull via her eye socket. Hardcore.

The cast is wonderful, and even though they recycle a few actors from “Re-Animator”, their roles are different enough so as not to retread the characters they already played. Jeffrey Combs is one of my favorite character actors and manages to play a mad scientist just different enough from the one he played in “Re-Animator”. I did feel that Herbert West and Crawford Tillinghast were a bit too similar, but not so much as to hurt the movie. Barbara Crampton plays a character almost entirely different from the one we saw in “Re-Animator” and does a fine job of it, proving to be both a villain and a heroine at the same time. Then there’s Ken Foree as Bubba Brownlee, who adds an element of comic relief to the film but not in any sort of distracting slapstick sort of way. He just seems to be the only one self-aware of how crazy everything is. Also, if the name doesn’t ring any bells, you might recognize Mr. Foree from another horror classic, namely the original “Dawn of the Dead”. Finally, Ted Sorel plays the lead villain, whom I at first thought was going to be a stale retread of Dr. Hill from “Re-Animator”. While similarities were noticeable, Dr. Pretorious definitely had different goals and motivation.

“From Beyond” is a bit of an underrated gem which has taken its sweet time in getting to DVD. Although it’s not a perfect recreation of the H. P. Lovecrat story, it’s one of the best ones out there and certainly worth your time.

Grade: B+

A theme Studio Ghibli flicks seem to be very fond of is the standard “Nature: Good, People: Bad” morality tale we’re all a little sick of in these Post-Captain Planet generation. While “Naussicaa” and “Princess Mononoke” beat you over the head with the lesson using dark and violent imagery, “Pom Poko” goes a more whimsical route, showing us everything from the perspective of a clan of magical raccoons living in Tama Hills during the big redevelopment era. Director and writer Isao Takahata manages to drive home the worthy moral to the audience but without ever skimping on the humor and charm, which I personally find much more entertaining than Miyazaki’s usual method of getting the notion across: “Step on a flower and giant monsters will kill you”.

In order to provide more suburban living quarters around the Japanese capital city of Tokyo, human developers began tearing apart the forests of Tama Hills with little concern for the wildlife which dwelled therein. Living in Tama Hills is a clan of magical raccoons capable of transforming into any appearance they wish. The raccoons of Tama Hills are desperate to stop the developers but their instinctual jovial nature and short attention spans doom them to a string of constant losses. With Tama Hills growing ever smaller, the raccoons finally decide to knuckle-down and fight back. On one side is the violent and ill-tempered Gonta (Clancy Brown), who wishes to wage deadly war on the humans, on the other side is Shokichi (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), a young raccoon who thinks that humans and raccoons can live side-by-side if only they can learn to get along.

When I stuck in “Pom Poko” I was expecting something akin to “Watership Down”, an animated film with a similar theme revolving around a civilization of rabbits trying to cope with human developers destroying their land and driving them away. However, within minutes I discovered that while “Pom Poko” shares a few similarities with the dark and creepy “Watership Down”, the two films were as different as night and day. The raccoons in this film, as is made expressly clear, are fun-loving partiers at heart. No matter how cramped and uncomfortable their life gets or how frustrating their lack of progress with the humans becomes, they always find time to party and have fun. And I think that’s what makes this film so mesmerizing; it’s just so much fun.

The film is told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator (Maurice LaMarche) whose identity is revealed at the end. We learn all the complexities and history of raccoon civilization; why they transform and how they’ve coexisted with humans for so many centuries. Based on the famous Japanese folk legends about the “tanuki”, the film has a wealth of history to dip into, making it all very deep, fascinating and enchanting. Anyone familiar with those tales are probably acquainted with the tanuki’s rather…um…sizeable “pouch”. Well, sure, you see raccoon testicles in this movie, a lot of raccoon testicles, but they’re never used in any sort of explicit or disgusting manner. The use of their dangly parts as shapeshifting aids is all very whimsical and harmless; only the staunchest of prudes would deprive their children from seeing this movie just because of the ever-present raccoon balls.

With that tangent out of the way, I’d like to delve into this film’s animation accomplishments. Studio Ghibli regularly blows the competition away with the achievements of its animation, but I think what makes “Pom Poko” stand out are the marvelous transformation effects. The characters turn into anything and everything and it all looks so smooth and natural you won’t want to blink or risk missing a single frame of gorgeous animation. The raccoons start the film out as novice shapeshifters, but as the story progresses (spanning a few years) and their skills increase, the transformation effects become grander and grander until you can’t imagine how much more impressive they can get.

While the film has a very fun and charming atmosphere, Takahata knows when to mix in the right amount of tragedy and sacrifice to darken the mood and draw us closer to the characters. And yet, keeping with the natural fun-loving instincts of the raccoons, these tear-jerking moments only last just as long as they have to and rarely risk depressing the audience. True, the ending is quite somber, yet simultaneously it is very uplifting and light-hearted. A very odd balance indeed, but Takahata manages it with tremendous success.

Once again, Disney assembles a fantastic cast for this Ghibli release. They’ve been giving these Ghibli films the “royal treatment”, so to speak, bringing together all the perfect actors for each and every role. LaMarche’s voice narrates the film with a great attitude; very deadpan but with subtle hints of humor where necessary. Clancy Brown almost steals the show as Gonta, managing to transition from his violent “Kurgan” voice to a goofy and silly one at the drop of a hat. Jonathan Taylor Thomas’ performance as Shokichi wasn’t spectacular but still very pleasant, and as well all know, he’s no stranger to voice acting. Tress MacNeille is wonderful as the rigid old lady raccoon, Oroku, channeling her usual voice of authority. Kevin Michael Richardson had me in stitches with his portrayal of the owner of the Wonderland amusement park. One of Richardson’s most marketable voices is his absolutely side-splitting Bill Cosby impression (check out “Family Guy” and “Codename: Kids Next Door” for more of it) and he uses a voice very similar for the theme park owner. Granted, it’s not entirely “Bill Cosby”, but just enough to keep me laughing.

Of all of Studio Ghibli’s “environmental” pieces, I found this to be the most entertaining. It delivers a grim and important message to the audience but manages to get it across in a manner that never ceases to be fun. If you don’t mind watching gigantic raccoon testicles mutate into boulders then I can’t think of any reason one couldn’t enjoy this movie.

Grade: A-

“Peter Pan” isn’t one of the Disney movies I recall all that fondly from my youth. I think the reason for that is because I never saw the thing in its entirety, mostly just in clips from specials like “Disney’s Halloween Treat” and what-not. So when it finally came around on Disney’s Platinum DVD collection I was somewhat overjoyed at the chance to finally watch a classic Disney film I’d never gotten to see before. My expectations were perhaps a little overhyped, but I’d say they were reasonably met. I can’t claim that “Peter Pan” is one of my favorite installments in the Disney animated canon, but I can say that it was overall a very fun picture.

Wendy (Katherine Beaumont), John (Paul Collins) and Michael Darling (Tommy Luske) are your typical kids living in Englad in the early 1900s. They all have very impressive imaginations but find their love of fantasy constantly being challenged by their temperamental father. One night, Peter Pan (Bobby Driscoll) comes to visit and whisks them away to Never Land, a place where your every fantasy can come true and you never have to grow old. They quickly find that a little fantasy can be a dangerous thing, as the dreaded pirate Captain Hook (Hans Conried) repeatedly attempts a ruthless revenge on Pan and his crew of Lost Boys for severing his hand and feeding it to a crocodile.

Disney films always have a moral to them, whether you like it or not. One moral they repeat quite often is that even though you grow up and your priorities may change, you never have to give up the things that brought you joy when you were young (check out “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” and “The Bridge to Terabithia” for more of this lesson). Sure, it may be trite, but I’ve always found it to be one of the better morals Disney has tried to instill upon their youthful audience and it’s certainly less bland than other flicks with morals like “family is good” (“Lilo & Stitch”) and “lying is wrong” (“Aladdin”). “Peter Pan” takes a very in-your-face approach to this particular concept and lays it on the viewers as unsubtly as possible. Which is fine, since that’s the whole point of the story, after all.

What I enjoyed most about “Peter Pan” was the cast of colorful and memorable characters that seemed to have a bit more heart pumped into them than the characters featured in more recent Disney offerings. The title hero represents the ultimate male fantasy, as he always comes out on top, never sweats in the face of danger and has every girl he meets swooning in his direction almost instantaneously. Despite being a bit of a jerk, he has a boyish charm that keeps the audience from hating him. Of the three kids who journey with him to Never Land, John came off as my favorite. His sense of stereotypical British elegance, dignity and intelligence made him stand out rather humorously during segments of total absurdity, yet being a kid he’s never stuffy or a party-pooper. You’ve also got the ever-silent Tinkerbell, who is admittedly very cute in her antics.

But it’s really the villains that make the movie, character-wise. Captain Hook is a Disney icon as far as badguys go and Hans Conried’s performance deserves a “bravo”. Hook’s bumbling assistant, Smee, steals a lot of the scenes featuring Hook but never gets too annoying like other dimwitted sidekicks in Disney flicks. His charm resides mostly in an outstanding performance from Bill Thompson, a regular Disney voice actor you might recall best as the White Rabbit from “Alice in Wonderland”. Then there’s the ever-present and ever-menacing crocodile, constantly haunting Hook and trying to gobble him up.

I suppose if I had one major complaint about this film it would have to be the music. None of the songs really had that sort of Disney “oomph” I like to hear and I can hardly remember the lyrics to a single one. I know there are many who would disagree with me, but as far as my personal tastes are concerned, they all seemed rather dull. “What Makes the Red Man Red” stood out, but that was mostly for its hilarious political incorrectness. “You Can Fly” was pretty good, now that I think about it, so I suppose the film had at least one number that stuck with me.

“Peter Pan” is a good Disney flick and very worthy of the “classic” label the company slaps on just about everything. With its new availability on DVD it should be easier now than ever for kids to check this flick out. However, I wouldn’t put it in my Top Ten Disney list and there are definitely better and more entertaining Disney movies you can show your kids or just enjoy on your own.

Grade: B-

I’m usually a sucker for anthology films of just about any kind, so I rushed to snatch up a copy of this 1946 Disney anthology piece which I had never seen in its entirety. Most people recognize “Make Mine Music” for only about three of its segments, which were cut loose from the film and shown individually on television and in other mediums. Having finally seen the film in its quasi-entirety (more on that later), I have to say, they cut those segments out for a reason. The vast majority of “Make Mine Music” is frightfully boring with only the most famous installments being worth viewing at all.

The film begins with “Blue Bayou”, a lullaby-like piece about the pristine beauty of the bayou which will likely put you to sleep in a heartbeat. Not the best way to start a film and a segment doomed to eternal fast-forwardings. “All the Cats Join in” is a jazz piece featuring Benny Goodman which tries to wake everybody up. The entire segment is very dated as it centers around the “hipcats” of the era and the various things teenagers back in 1946 liked to do. It tries so hard to be “cool”, but like anything that’s “cool”, is destined to be considered “lame” with time. While its jazzy tunes would seem to indicate a new spike upward in speed and energy, “All the Cats Join in” is immediately followed by another wretchedly slow and boring piece called “Without You” which you’re better off doing without.

At last we make it to one of the better segments, “Casey at Bat”, which retells the famous poem about the great baseball player who, in his arrogance, strikes out while trying to show off at a big game. It’s very funny with a manic pace more akin to Looney Tunes. It’s one of the segments I mentioned that wound up being severed from the film and shown individually. “Casey at Bat” is sadly followed by another boring-as-all-heck segment called “Two Silhouettes” which features two rotoscoped silhouettes ballet-dancing as animated cherubs flutter around them. Dull as dishwater and certain to put any adult to sleep, let alone a rambunctious tyke.

Our patience is quickly rewarded with another of the better segments, “Peter and the Wolf”. Narrated by Sterling Holloway (Winnie the Pooh), it tells the tale of a little Russian boy who goes out into the wild with his animal buddies (each characterized by their own instrument) to hunt a killer wolf. What makes this story so unique is that each character is personified only by their individual instrument and not any voice acting of any kind. Clocking it at around fifteen minutes, it’s definitely very fun, upbeat and energetic.

We’re left to suffer through two more mediocre segments, the first of which is “After You’ve Gone”, a sleepy piece about anthropomorphic brass instruments and gloves which play a piano. The next yawn-worthy installment is “Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet”, which tells the tale of two anthropomorphic hats which fall in love but are separated when they’re purchased. I suppose it’s a little more lively than some of the other pieces, but still very slow and agonizing never-the-less.

The movie ends on a definite strong note with “The Whale who Wanted to Sing at the Met”, another of the three segments which reached popularity when shown on its own. This story is about a whale named Willie who can sing in three separate operatic tones and piques the interest of a talent agent named Tetti-Tatti. Tetti, however, believes Willie has swallowed an opera singer and means to harpoon the poor guy while he’s giving a performance. A very sad story but all the better for it, with a lot of roaring music and solidly pleasing animation.

There’s one more segment, “The Martins and the Coys”, which is a musical retelling of the famous hillbilly feud you may have heard about. For reasons I don’t fully understand, this segment was removed from “Make Mine Music” for the film’s DVD release. Supposedly, the geniuses at Disney thought the humorous gunplay in the segment might warp the minds of impressionable young children. Alternatively, some claim that Disney did not want to offend their Southern audience, as the film portrays Southerners as being triggerhappy hicks. Whatever the reason, I abhor censorship of this kind and sternly wag my finger at Disney for pulling something like this.

At any rate, the absence of one segment only means to make a very mediocre film worse. “Make Mine Music” is an often overlooked Disney flick for a reason. It is incredibly dull 70% of the time, with only three segments of actual worth. I definitely wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but the most dedicated of Disney fans.

Grade: D

“The Fly II” seems to get a pretty bad rap whenever I talk to people about it. Sure, it’s a far cry from David Cronenberg’s epic sci-fi tragedy and definitely falls more into the category of a standard horror film, but it’s still a pretty good horror film. Director Chris Walas does his best to keep from copying the film’s successor and puts together an original yet familiar sequel that’s entertaining in its own right. While I wouldn’t hold it up on the same mantle that I would the previous installment, I would never go so far as to trash the flick like so many others tend to do.

The late Seth Brundle’s mutant son, Martin (Eric Stoltz), has a terrible condition which causes him to age and mature at a hyper-progressive rate. At only age five he’s already the physical and mental equivalent of a twenty year-old. Forced to live in the sterile environment of the Bartok Industries building and raised by the two-faced Anton Bartok (Lee Richardson), Martin is coaxed into continuing his father’s telepod project. Martin hopes to use the pods to find a cure for his condition, while Bartok intends to use the device for military contracts and plots to simply cast Martin into specemin study as soon as his usefulness is over. Martin’s condition rapidly accelerates, turning him into a grotesque pupa that will eventually turn into a creature entirely worse. Martin’s only hope is Beth Logan (Daphne Zuniga), an employee at Bartok Industries who has fallen in love with him.

“The Fly II” knows that it can’t outdo what the original film accomplished, so it doesn’t really try to be more artistic or more thought-provoking; it simply tries to be an entertaining horror movie. And really, that’s all this movie is. While it shares similarities with the last movie, Martin’s ailment is considerably different than Seth’s, with his transformation into a giant cocoon and eventually a hideus fly-monster all-together different than how the previous installment went about it.

While the effects used on the mutating Martin are certainly ugly and disgusting, Chris Walas doesn’t go for the gross-out factor nearly as much as Cronenberg. The Martin-fly itself also looks nothing like the unsightly mishmash of buldging parts that was Brundle-fly and is very symmetrical and more in-line with what you’d expect a monster to look like. It sort of reminded me of the Violator from “Spawn”, but only sort of. The effects which bring the Martin-fly to life are surprisingly good, for the most part. You can tell, though, that Walas makes a distinct effort to keep you from seeing the whole monster all at once since it required probably a team of people to operate it just off camera. So usually you only see just its feet or its head or simply its body dropping limply from the ceiling for a split second. After a while this tactic becomes fairly obvious, but it still doesn’t withdraw too much from the effects.

Eric Stoltz delivers a fine performance as the socially inept but good natured Martin Brundle. While Daphne Zuniga’s performance as Beth isn’t anything to write home about, I give kudos to Walas for not repackaging the romance between Jeff Goldblum and Gena Davis from the previous movie. Lee Richardson’s Anton Bartok is a bit of a cookie cutter “evil corporate executive” villain stereotype, but I will say this; his cumuppance at the film’s climax is wonderful. One of my favorite voice actors, Garry Chalk, has a small part as a jackass security guard who pushes Martin around and winds-up getting his in the end. I just thought I’d point that out since, hey, he’s Optimus Primal on “Beast Wars”.

If I were you, I wouldn’t listen to all the negative press this film receives. But also, if I were you, I wouldn’t go into “The Fly II” looking for the same experience as the first “Fly”. As it stands, “The Fly II” is a good horror flick and little more, but really, what’s so wrong about that?

Grade: B

I’m so grateful that Disney has been making these Studio Ghibli films available here in America, and much to my delight, they’re dubbing them extraordinarily well. When I first started “The Cat Returns” I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy it. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about Ghibli productions is that they don’t give in to the tired visual trends of most Japanese anime and craft character designs that are aesthetically pleasing on an international level. The designs for “The Cat Returns” are decidedly more in-line with how anime stereotypically looks these days, albeit in a far more restrained manner. To my surprise, these designs leant themselves to the overtly cute nature of the tale and kept away from practically everything I dislike about modern anime aesthetics. Good show.

Haru (Anne Hathaway) is your usual kind but absent-minded Japanese girl who only thinks about boys and hanging out with her friends. One day, after rescuing a strange cat from being run down by a car, she finds herself being thanked by the King of Cats himself (Tim Curry). The rotund King wastes no time in showering her with gifts and then breaks the news that he wants her to go to the Kingdom of Cats and marry his son, the Prince (Andrew Bevis). Haru isn’t in a hurry to get married to a cat, so she seeks help from the Cat Bureau. The dashing Baron (Cary Elwes) takes her case, and along with his associates, the bitter and overweight cat Muta (Peter Boyle) and the crow Toto (Elliot Gould), follows her to the Cat Kingdom to protect her. Escaping the Cat Kingdom won’t be easy, however, as Haru gradually transforms into a cat herself and finds the effects will be permanent if she doesn’t leave fast.

What captured my heart about this film was its wonderful sense of humor. The gags are fantastically well-timed and fantastically well-acted, running the gamut from being side-splitting to just flat-out adorable. Disney has assembled another phenomenal voice cast for the English version, with each of the actors giving the characters so much personality you come to love every one of them. Anne Hathaway astounded me with her performance as Haru, with her voice being so natural and fun that it practically made the movie. Haru might have come across as a rather generic lead heroine had it not been for her stellar performance. Peter Boyle’s crass but lovable voice was made for the character of Muta while Tim Curry is always a joy to listen to. I suppose the only nit to be picked in the voice-over department was the addition of Elliot Gould as Toto. Gould has a great voice and delivered a fine performance, but with Toto having such a small role in the film it seemed a little superfluous. And as talented as Gould is, there was nothing about Toto’s character that seemed to scream out “this guy should be voiced by Elliot Gould!”

Like all Ghibli films, “The Cat Returns” is over-flowing with a charm all its own. It is a very silly movie, with the dangers and threats coming across more jovial than frightening or heart-pounding. It’s a fun break from more serious offerings with a very light tone that never dares to break the cute and whimsical mood. I’ve already complimented the film’s sense of humor, but I feel it deserves a second high-five. There are so many gags going on in this movie that if it doesn’t make you laugh it’ll at least make you smile from start to finish. I especially liked the King’s “Secret Service” cats.

While “The Cat Returns” may look a bit too “anime” for my tastes, it has all the wit and charm of any other film in Ghibli’s library. It’s regrettably short, unfortunately, clocking in at only a little over an hour. Still, it flows well and keeps you entertained all the way through. One of the better Ghibli films I’ve have the pleasure of watching and one I’d highly recommend.

Grade: B+

The Resident Evil film franchise started out at the bottom and somehow managed to work its way downward from there. Each installment has defied all logic by getting increasingly worse, culminating in this supposedly final chapter. If this is indeed the last installment of this utterly wretched action horror series, then praise be to Allah, we’ve been granted mercy.

Following the events of “Resident Evil: Apocalypse”, the Umbrella Corporation’s T-virus has wiped out most of humanity and turned the world into a barren wasteland infested with legions of zombies. Gun-toting genetically bred warrior maiden, Alice (Mila Jovovich), roams the endless deserts of the American southwest, fighting zombies and avoiding Umbrella’s satellite tracking systems. She eventually meets up with Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) and her convoy of forgettable stereotypes to go to Alaska or something. However, upon doing so, they all become the target of Dr. Isaacs (Lain Glen), a mad scientist under Umbrella’s employ who seeks to use Alice’s unique DNA to subjugate the world’s massive zombie population into slaves.

The Resident Evil film trilogy comes across more like Paul WS Anderson’s glorified fanfiction, with Alice as his own personal “Mary Sue” character. For those unacquainted with the term, a “Mary Sue” is an original character created and inserted into fiction, usually fanfiction, who is “all powerful”, “totally awesome”, completely devoid of depth and basically just the author’s diseased concept of what “bad ass” is. That pretty much describes Alice to a “T”, as the actual characters who star in the video games are either ignored completely or cast into empty supporting roles in order to make room for Alice doing backflips and setting zombies on fire with her inexplicable telekinetic superpowers.

Screenwriter and all-around hack, Paul WS Anderson, throws the fans a couple bones with this installment, including a couple of main characters from the games in co-starring or supporting roles. All good Resident Evil fans should recognize Claire Redfield without any trouble. Unfortunately, since all the screentime was needed to make Alice look as “cool” as possible, Claire is pretty much just your usual no-nonsense leader woman without even a scrap of real personality. The head honcho of Umbrella, Wesker (Jason O’Mara), manages a few small appearances in this installment, barking orders from the proverbial shadows. He’s actually represented somewhat accurately, as that’s usually his gig in the games.

The other original characters are just your typical cannon-fodder nobodies. There’s a cowboy guy, a black guy who dies early on because that’s a mandatory horror movie trend, some adorable children and a teenage girl named K-Mart. You read that right. For a second there, I thought I was watching “Idiocracy”.

I’m both happy and sad having now seen “Resident Evil: Extinction”. I’m happy that the series is finally over (oh please, let it be over), but I’m sad that we’re never going to get any good Resident Evil movies because of these films. At least we’ll always have the games.

Grade: F