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Batman: Gotham Knight, a review by Tom

Title: Batman: Gotham Knight
Year: 2008
Director: Have I Got a Story For You, Shojiro Nishimi, Crossfire, Futoshi Higashide, Field Test, Hiroshi Morioka, In Darkness Dwells, Yasuhiro Aoki, Working Through Pain, Toshiyki Kubooka, Deadshot, Jong-Sik Nam
Rating: 15
Length: 76 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.85
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital Stereo, German: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: English, German, Spanish

Stars:
Kevin Conroy
Jason Marsden
Scott Menville
George Newbern
Corey Padnos

Plot:
Acclaimed screenwriters including David Goyer (Batman Begins), Josh Olson (A History of Violence) and Alan Burnett (Batman The Animated Series) join forces with revered animation filmmakers on six spellbinding chapters chronicling Batman's transition from novice crimefighter to The Dark Knight. These globe-spanning adventures pit Batman against the fearsome Scarecrow, the freakish Killer Croc and the unerring marksman Deadshot. From some of the world's most visionary animators comes a thrilling depiction of Batman as man, myth and legend.

Extras:
Commentary
Exclusive DC Comics Character Guide
Featurettes
Scene Access

I did not buy this release until now, because of what I have read about it, it didn't seem that I would enjoy it. But then I saw the trailer for it on the Wonder Woman Blu-ray I watched recently, and I thought it could be something I will enjoy. But sadly, it didn't quite work out this way. The animation quality varies, but all stories were rather boring. Batman done by anime directors may sound fitting, but I think they didn't quite catch the character. Though I never was a big fan of animated Batman.
This Blu-ray contains four episodes of the 90's Batman animation series. I will watch those next. The first one I already watched. The story there is similar to the one in the first segment of the main feature. Of what I have read so far, one of the others is about Freeze. Another about Batgirl, where Commissionar Gordon, her father, finds out about her nightly activities (I am curious about that episode).

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on June 27th, 2009)

Superman Returns, a review by DJ Doena

February, 13th


Director: Bryan Singer

Brandon Routh   ...    Clark Kent / Superman
Kate Bosworth   ...    Lois Lane
Kevin Spacey   ...    Lex Luthor
James Marsden   ...    Richard White
Parker Posey   ...    Kitty Kowalski
Frank Langella   ...    Perry White
Sam Huntington   ...    Jimmy Olsen
Kal Penn    ...    Stanford

Synopsis: Nobody has seen or heard from Superman in five years. In the meantime Lois Lane has become a mommy and she's written the Pulitzer-winning article "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman". But now Clark is back from what is left of Krypton and he's needed right now again: Lex Luthor has stolen Kryptionian crystals from the Fortress and wants to build a new continent - at the expense of that small island called North America.

My Opinion: It took me some time to really get used to that movie. Mainly because I was mad at Bryan Singer for abandoning the X-Men project which resulted in The Last Stand. But now with a few years distance, I like this movie.
Some elements are still very comic-like, like Lex's behaviour at some points of the story but that is fully outweighed by the moments he's truly evil.
I also like Brandon Routh's portrayal of Clark/Superman. While Christopher Reeve's Clark was a bit of a douchebag that I didn't like very much, they chose to do it differently here. He's just a nobody who lingers in the background and isn't noticed by anybody but Jimmy. Lois couldn't care less about him in any way - which makes it believable that she doesn't see Superman in him. For me that works.
Speaking of realism (): The one scene I didn't buy was when Superman lifted that island out into space while he still had a piece of Kryptonite stuck in his side and was exposed to the other K in the island. If Lex can beat him up just because he's around it, he should have never been able to lift that weight. So much for in-universe consistency...

(From DJ Doena's movie watchings 2010 on February 13th, 2010)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

The Vampire Diaries: Season One (2009/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Warner Home Video (United Kingdom) Length: 889 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: Dutch, English, Swedish

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Plot:
Dark, brooding, pulsing with bloodlust and transcendent with romance, The Vampire Diaries - which started as a series of must-read novels by L.J. Smith - has become a must-watch television hit. Season One offers unforgettable characters, living and undead. They are vampire brothers Stefan and Damon, one good and one evil; Elena, a double for the beauty both brothers loved some 150 years earlier; plus Jeremy, Bonnie, Matt and more denizens of Mystic Falls, VA. All are caught up in a spellbinding web of secrets, passion and terror.

Extras:

• Commentary
• Deleted Scenes
• Featurettes
• Outtakes

"Dawson's Creek" goes vampire. This is about the basic premise. It even is created by the same guy. At first glance, it looks like a Twilight TV series (although I have seen Twilight, I only can go on my impression on it). But it is based on a 1991 trilogy of books (pre-dating Twilight). But it was obviously made to cash in on Twilight's success.
Overall I enjoyed this series. Even though you do not really feel this series is something special, you cannot help to continue watching it.
This season's cliffhanger makes me want to continue with season 2. Although I am unhappy with a character's death in the finale
There is something which really bothers me, which doesn't really have to do with this series. Recently Microsoft pushes their product placement. That on itself doesn't bother me. Apple has done it for years. I first noticed in when I recently watched the ninth season of Smallville, where instead of seeing Apple logos on all notebooks we suddenly see Windows logos and the Watchtower computer all running with a fresh install of Windows 7. Then I saw Room in Rome, where they really pushed Microsoft Bing and a Google Earth like application. And in this series, all the characters are using the search engine Bing. So far so good. But one scene did go too far and pulled me out of the series. One character proclaimed, that she "binged" it, with the camera closing in the Bing website, so that you knew what the hell she was talking about. It was quite obvious that they are trying to bring this verb into the vocabularly of the viewers to compete with the success of "to google".

#	Episode	Rating
01	Pilot
02	The Night of the Comet
03	Friday Night Bites
04	Family Ties
05	You're Undead to Me
06	Lost Girls
07	Haunted
08	162 Candles
09	History Repeating
10	The Turning Point
11	Bloodlines
12	Unpleasantville
13	Children of the Damned
14	Fool Me Once
15	A Few Good Men
16	There Goes the Neighborhood
17	Let the Right One In
18	Under Control
19	Miss Mystic Falls
20	Blood Brothers
21	Isobel
22	Founder's Day

(From Tom's Random Reviews on February 13th, 2011)