"The Dark Knight Rises" at the Pride's Corner Drive-In

The Pride's Corner Drive-In is one of the last of it's kind.  Opened in 1953 and still a cult favorite among the locals, it's one of the few remaining authentic Drive-In experiences available.  And I say authentic because up until recently, they still used the little speaker thingies for show sound (you must now tune into a radio station.  This is an upgrade, to be sure, but I wish I had known about it beforehand.  I would have brought along a walkman or a little radio and headphones.)



Additionally, one of the highlights to a visit to Pride's Corner is their intermission, because they show a handful of oftentimes hilarious animated shorts promoting their wonderful, wonderful refreshment stand:


Lights are kept nice and bright during the intermission, the field is kept as clean as can be expected, and patrons are all but encouraged to bring chairs and coolers and sit outside under the stars. The only caveat is that the restrooms are... well, they could use an upgrade. But you get a double-feature for less than twenty bucks a carfull, and that cannot be beat.

The lot opens at around seven and shows start at dusk, but we arrived a little late both because this was a very impulsive night out and, well, none of us were enthusiastic for the first feature; we were only going for Batman.

The first feature was "Total Recall" and... err...



Yeah.

"The Dark Knight Rises", on the other hand, was very good.  Very, very good.  And I am pretty sure that anyone who was going to see it either already has or is about to very soon.  So there's not really any reason for me to launch into a big, long review.  Instead, I'll share some of my stray observations, and they will include vast galloping herds of unmarked spoilers.  I should note that my main point of reference for these characters is "Batman: The Animated Series" and its spinoffs, and IMO there's nothing wrong with that:

* - So, this is the second major work of fiction I've experienced this summer where the villain's motivation initially appears to be totally noble.  I say initially, because it eventually turns out that both Bane and Amon are merely exploiting their followers' wishes for social justice in order to amass an army that will first attack the people in power, and both villains ultimately simply want to cause chaos and utterly destroy the city they initially claimed they would save.  Interesting.  I'm sure there's already been a lot of digital ink spilled over this across the message boards, though.

* - My main, but really my only, complaint with the film is that the Talia Al'Ghul story needed a lot more room to breathe.  There's also something kind of ridiculous about Bruce Wayne being an emo recluse for eight years, but fortunately the plot gets rolling pretty quickly and so there's not much of that.

So, all in all, a grand night out.  If there's a drive-in theater anywhere near you, go to a show sometime.  Do what you can to keep this unique theatrical experience alive.

So... "Gotham High"

With that headline and perhaps with what you can discern of my mood lately, I'm guessing it's pretty transparent that some stuff happened recently in real life that made it hard for me to keep on top of things in the wider pop culture world. I... might explain what's going on later or I might not; right now, it's too soon.

Anyway, here is something the rest of the animation blogosphere is already over:



Mad props if you can recognize all the characters. "Gotham High" was a show that was being developed by the comic book artist/author team Celeste Green and Jeffrey Thomas. The whole thing was prompted by a piece of art they had made and sent in to DC. You can see it and the other concept art for the series on their blog.

So as far as anyone knows, this was not the "make us a cartoon about Batman in high school to appeal to the young parsons!" series that, through clever interpretation, eventually became "Batman: Beyond". It's a more recent proposal that was lost in the great sea of Batman-related animation projects pitched in-between the two (thus far) Christopher Nolan (hold that thought) films. It was rejected and it isn't happening. I think the "this is a secret test" theory over at Topless Robot is intriguing, though a little unlikely. The whole thing was probably going to be in the vein of the dearly missed "Clone High".

This is, if it were actually happening, a fine example of the crazy and stupid stuff Warner Bros. likes to do with it's characters now (let's not bring THAT series up again). But with the "This is not actually going to happen" safety net securely beneath us, I have to say that, surprisingly enough... I don't hate this. Which is to say, I think the concept art and character designs look really, really good. Clayface leaves me a tad confused, but every other character design choice is pretty clever.

I am glad this isn't happening, don't get me wrong. Now, have you heard of that crazy Spider-Man musical?

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Been surprisingly disciplined in adding new reviews to the Realm of Mad-Ness. The latest is of a kid's movie that will scar children for life. Actually, that describes most of the kid's movies I review. Huh.
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Sketch of the Day!

Yeah... I still kinda feel like this.

Further "Teen Titans" thoughts, DCAU movies, and a strange clip from Disney

When we last left off, I was near the end of "Teen Titans" and it was just then starting to get good.
I can confirm: the last season of this series is excellent and the rest of it is essentially skippable. (It depends on how long you can tolerate some very stylized characters shouting "Dude" and "Boo-yah" at each other. Or, if you're me, seeing Beast Boy turn into the exact same damn bird but having him be identified / sound like at least three different species. Yeah.)
All snark aside, the fifth season is absolutely worth renting. They have a lot of fun with some of the stranger DC characters, like the Doom Patrol, who otherwise may never have seen the light of day in animated form. However, it's frustrating to see a series have it's greatest moments in the last episodes. Where could they have gone from there?
Must be noted: I related way too closely to Raven in the "Hide and Seek" episode. Entertain yourself with the implications, dear readers.
One things for sure: Ain't gonna miss that theme song.

Turns out that I missed a few crossover episodes back in "Batman"/"Superman" (available only as something called "The Batman / Superman Movie" and not in either series' season sets. Maybe I'll complain about Warner Brother's inane DVD policies later. For now: durable boxes. Or how about not having three different security stickers on your cardboard boxes, huh?) They were fun.
And I also forgot "Mask of the Phantasm". Many have argued that this is the best "Batman" film prior to when Christopher Nolan got to play in the Bat-sandbox. I'm not sure about that but I thought it was at least as good as the first Tim Burton film.

And now for a fun little early '90's Disney thing:



Remember when they were shamelessly promoting Roger Rabbit? ("Who Discovered Roger Rabbit" is my "Chinese Democracy".)

Continuing the DC Animated Universe, and a bonus from another major comic publisher.

I left off in Autumn, so let me bring this up to speed.

Early Winter: "Justice League"
This series hit the ground running and stayed consistently terrific. As with "Batman Beyond" there was an excellent sense of continuity and each episode has little rewards for anyone familiar with all the characters. About the only downside -and it isn't even the show's fault- is that I liked this so much, I wanted to keep this project going for longer (normally, there would only be the two seasons of "Justice League Unlimited" left). So I decided to consider the next show part of the DCAU...

Winter: "Teen Titans"
...And I think I know why this usually isn't considered a DCAU series.
Now, to be fair, I'm not a ten year old boy. I'm not the target audience for this show -- but therein lies the rub. I remember watching "Batman" as a kid. I liked it then, and I liked it even more when I went back and watched it as an adult. Most of the best animated series ever made are the ones that purposefully do not go out of their way to appeal only to children. "Teen Titans" is one of the very few series based upon a DC comic that does, and by the end of each DVD I find myself exhausted.
I'm in the middle of the fourth season and just now the series is acting more mature (OK, there were some bright spots earlier, like the Terra arc... which lasted all of five episodes.) I know I'm being unfair here, so I'll talk more about this series when I'm done watching it.

Until then, here's ten gloriously funny minutes worth of "WTF?" from the frequently bizarre Fox Kids "X-Men" cartoon, from around the same era the DCAU hit it's stride:

Highlights include Wolverine being kind of a dick, Table Man, and a possible "Lion King" tribute at around the four minute mark.
Honestly, Table Man might be my new favorite "Hilarious Marvel Character" next to Beak and Squirrel Girl.

The Chronological DC Animated Universe.

Ah, the first blog post on Animation. This one isn't going to be a novel like my last post, but it will require a bit of a flashback to this summer.


For whatever reason, I decided to add every available set of DVDs from the DC Animated Universe (or Timmverse or Diniverse or whatever you like to call it) to my Netflix queue and watch them, over the summer, in chronological order. The funny thing is, it's taken longer to plow through the DCAU than to watch and review every animated Disney film I could find. (As an aside, that's probably the best feature on my Semi-Obligatory "I Started This Back In College Now It Looks Odd To Me" Geocities Website. I'm still debating whether it ought to be the last feature.) I'm still at it now, months later. My thoughts, thus far:


Mid-Summer: "Batman the Animated Series"
I'm not going to get too detailed here as more, and better, has been written about this series. I consider it the best adaptation of anything, ever, from one medium to another. The first few episodes are a bit slow, not as good as I'd remembered. But the show becomes a thing of beauty once we get to Mr. Freeze's debut episode, Harvey Dent's character arc, potentially jokey characters (Baby Dahl, Scarface) given tragic, satisfying episodes, Harley Quinn, Rhas Al'Ghul, "Almost Got 'im"... oh, dammit, I'm gushing. I promised I wouldn't gush.
Point is, this entire project would have been totally worth it if I had stopped with the final episode of this one series. But I didn't...

Late Summer: "Superman!"
Uh... Yeah...
The first season of this show was like an endurance test for me. I know this is almost unpatriotic to say (it shames me as an America Pants-kateer) but I... I reeeeeally find it hard to give a pair of fetid dingo kidneys about Superman.
Now, now wait a minute. I liked the first two Richard Donner films, I got unapologetically weepy at the teaser trailer for "Superman Returns" (especially the longer version included on some of these season sets) and enjoyed the film - up to a point. I really like the old Fleisher animated shorts, and I love "Justice League" (as you'll see). I suppose my point is that a little Superman goes a very long way, and he's a hard character to sustain an entire series with. That said, season two is decent, at least the crazy Jack Kirby inspired episodes with Darkseid.

Autumn: "Batman Beyond"
Now, this series was terrific. I actually had fond memories of it from it's original run and was glad to see all the episodes in order. Most of them were actually better than I remembered. I think the producers hit their stride here. There's a terrific sense of continuity here (technology from one-off "Batman" episodes are treated as a fact of life in future Gotham for example), and they weren't afraid to come up with some serious downer episodes ("Earthmover"). There are some disappointments ("Curse of Kobra" has got the single stupidest payoff to an otherwise promising two-part episode ever), but the series as a whole is fantastic and a worthy companion to "BTAS".

There's more, but in the interest of fairness, I'll post my thoughts later. Until then, Sketch of the Inconsistant Amount of Time: