New on DVD for the Week of 10/19

Video Pick of the Week: Rain Shadow

The Go-Getter

Gunnin' for that #1 Spot

The Incredible Hulk

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Rain Shadow: Series 1

Sweeney Todd (Arriving on Blu-ray)

New Releases via Amazon

Batman: Gotham Knight

Directors:
Yasuhiro Aoki,
Futoshi Higashide,
Toshiyuki Kubooka,
Hiroshi Morioka, & Shoujirou Nishini

“I never seen him before, but I’m like I so know who this is,” a teenage skateboarder proclaims in Have I Got a Story For You, which serves as the first entry of the impressively animated if uneven six part anthological comic book come to cinematic life in the new DVD release Batman: Gotham Knight. Of course, the caped crusader to whom the teens are referring is none other than Batman and in a series of escalating stories, the group tries to outdo one another as a sort of fanboy version of a “your mama” joke. While it's admittedly a rather weak way to open the episodic work, from a narrative perspective, it makes perfect sense to ensure the audience’s thirst for good old fashioned storytelling by listening to several tall tales in preparation for the film’s far superior yarns to come. And indeed, much like a perfect mix CD made by a friend who knows your musical taste well, the six talented Japanese anime experienced filmmakers responsible for Gotham Knight know how to excite viewers as the film climbs steadily, building upon itself to become worthy of the formidably high bar that Batman enthusiasts have set for any entry in the series.

Broken into a half dozen distinctive chapters, each of the tales in Gotham Knight was created by an entirely different director and screenwriter. Now while in traditional live action form this may be distracting (and some critics referenced the failure of Four Rooms in their Gotham reviews) and it's also been pretentious (such as in the overly long Paris je t’aime), this technique can also provide a unique visual take to differentiate the chapters and better serve the story, such as Kieslowski employing a different cinematographer for each individual segment of his brilliant Three Colors Trilogy. Granted it’s not in the same league as Kieslowski nor should one compare apples to oranges-- or more precisely an anime take on a comic book with some of the best foreign films of the 1990’s-- but the bottom line is, it works in the exact same way in avoiding getting viewers lost in the shuffle of too much stimuli by switching up the visuals, not just for novelty or to pander to the ADD attention spans most filmmakers assume those of us reared on MTV, video games and Choose Your Own Adventure books have, but to better the experience considerably.

And although the mission may have been to segue from Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins into the hotly anticipated sequel The Dark Knight or-- at its most cynical-- another excuse to get more bat bang for the box office buck, Gotham Knight offers several fascinating looks at the comic book’s mythology including various points-of-view when it comes to the existential hero himself. In addition it references not only Nolan’s works but also the films from the other directors including the horribly campy Schumacher offerings, Burton’s masterworks, the comic book itself as well as the deliciously cheesy television series and original film from 1966.

Upping the action considerably from Story, the film moves into Sin City like territory with the dark and breathtakingly animated Crossfire. In this short, we’re given a cop’s-eye-view of Gotham City and just what moral and ethical quandaries go along with having a vigilante like Bruce Wayne’s Batman basically jeopardizing their job security, with some officers led by Lt. Gordon who are in favor of his unorthodox and not exactly legal crime fighting and others who seem more annoyed by the caped one than the average Joe is of telemarketers. Above all, we’re constantly reminded of Bruce Wayne’s code of honor and the fact that-- while he’s arguably one of the darkest comic book characters ever created-- he doesn’t kill anyone and is always willing to put his own life on the line but will never ask anyone else to do the same for him.

Of course, Batman wouldn’t be able to whip out the “kapow” and “splat” without throwing some villains into the film and we’re given some genuinely exciting confrontations with Scarecrow (whom viewers recall from Nolan's Batman Begins) in the short chapter In Darkness Dwells and a humdinger of an introduction to Deadshot in Deadshot. In fact just these two shorts put together more than make up for some of the ridiculous villains and storylines introduced in the late 90’s Schumacher sequels wherein the franchise hit an all-time low with nipples on the batsuit, a wasted Jim Carrey, and trying to cram in an obligatory pop song every twenty minutes to sell Bat-soundtracks.

However, and thankfully never wearing out its welcome in its seventy-five minute running time, the film’s true standout comes in the form of director Toshiyuki Kubooka’s Working Through Pain which was penned by screenwriter Brian Azzarello. In Pain, we find Bruce Wayne heading east where he enlists the mentorship of a bright Indian woman named Cassandra to help teach him how to control his body’s responses and deal with the excruciating pain in which he often finds himself. Instead of just rehashing the tried and true Mr. Miyagi inspired Karate Kid clichéd plot, the filmmakers dig deeper to make Cassandra the most fascinating supporting player in the film that isn’t a regular part of the mythology as we learn that in order to acquire her knowledge she had to hide the fact that she was a woman, only to be accused of witchcraft when her gender was inevitably discovered.

It’s these little touches in the storytelling along with awe-inspiring artwork that separate the film from simply being labeled a clever marketing tool. And by giving audiences a chance to go from one episode to the next, similar to waiting for the next installment in a comic book series, we’re given a richer look at the man in black than perhaps what would’ve been shared if we’d only been offered one single narrative to sum up the endlessly complicated bat.

Sleepy Hollow

Director:
Tim Burton

Such as it was in the case of Edward Scissorhands and their newest collaboration Sweeney Todd, some material just seems made for director Tim Burton and his frequent muse and star, Johnny Depp. And in the case of-- as they sang in the Disney animated version-- “Ichabod, Ichabod, Ichabod Crane,” and Washington Irving’s entire Legend of Sleepy Hollow, again we are faced with one of those quintessential situations best delivered to audiences via Burton and Depp.

Sensuously heightened and painterly in scope, the photography by Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (The New World, Great Expectations, Like Water for Chocolate) is one of the most startlingly original artistic achievements in years and well-worth the audience investment even when the film grows increasingly bloody with each passing scene.

Set in 1799, Sleepy Hollow (which incidentally was filmed precisely two hundred years later) follows scientifically inclined constable Ichabod Crane who leaves his post in the big city to travel to the small village of Sleepy Hollow in order to investigate the suspicious deaths of numerous citizens who are left decapitated in the night by a villainous horse-rider that the town has dubbed the Headless Horseman (played by Christopher Walken, of course).

Emphasizing the unattractive qualities of his intense fear, shyness and peculiarity rather than the historic homeliness of Crane, Depp is wonderful, delightfully gasping and fainting when he comes face to face with not only the village horrors but also the beautiful young Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci), whose family he stays with during the investigation. Earning a sidekick in not only Katrina but Young Masbath (Marc Pickering), a servant boy whose father was one of the unfortunate victims, Crane sleuths out the case, only to predictably find himself the center of increasing jeopardy as he detects some of the shocking little secrets being hidden by the town's elders (including the judge, reverend and others).

Although as IMDb reported acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard was tapped to complete an un-credited rewrite of the script to tone down the excessive violence of Andrew Kevin Walker’s original work, blood spills and heads roll aplenty but luckily, Burton never fully relishes in the gore as some directors may have, instead, as a former Walt Disney Studios animator, he found himself inspired by the style of Disney’s version in the creation of his own (IMDb). However, as true with Sweeney Todd, when it comes to this Burton/Depp venture, it’s best to leave the kiddies at home and like Todd, their fans wouldn't have it any other way.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Director: Tim Burton

As beloved children’s novelist Roald Dahl wrote before the first chapter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in preparing readers for the plot, “there are five children,” in the tale but Charlie Bucket is “the hero.”

August Rush star Freddie Highmore who was recommended by his Finding Neverland costar Johnny Depp to director Tim Burton, plays Charlie Bucket, the sole young boy in the Bucket household who lives with his four grandparents and two parents “in a small wooden house on the edge of a great town.” Although relegated to a life of poverty and surviving on measly meals of cabbage soup, the Buckets are a kind and loving family who every year pool their money to get Charlie a Willy Wonka Chocolate Bar for his birthday.

Near the start of the film, five of Wonka’s chocolate bars which are made in the grand factory in Charlie’s community have been wrapped inside golden tickets that will gain its recipients a one-day pass to Wonka's factory. Four wicked children earn admission and after a few failed attempts, Charlie becomes one of the winners and brings his beloved Grandpa Joe along with him for the candy filled adventure.

Of course, as readers of the classic book and/or viewers of the 1971 film version Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory recall, the factory is as filled with mischief and danger as it is with edible delights but there’s no greater mystery than that of the factory owner himself, Willy Wonka who’s played by frequent Burton collaborator Johnny Depp in the newest adaptation.

Blending together personalities of game show and children’s television show hosts such as Mr. Rogers as inspiration, Depp crafted a unique take on the character that he described as “part Howard Hughes reclusive, part 1970’s glamorous rock star,” according to IMDb, although as many critics and viewers noted, it’s the physical appearance of feminine looking hair and teeth that had most of us creepily reminded of the once-dubbed King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

With an innovative screenplay from Go and Big Fish scribe John August, who had never seen the original film before he began writing the new film and only used Dahl’s book as his guide, we get first and foremost a more faithful version of the book. In addition, we also have the inclusion of a few new plot points such as giving Wonka a more fascinating back-story by making his father a dentist, that really make this work seem much more approachable than as August noted, the much darker original (IMDb), which frankly I never loved quite as much as most movie fans.

However, the script aside, a Tim Burton movie is uniquely Tim Burton and he’s the perfect choice for the director, including his unique and subtle cinematic fingerprints on each frame and some of the bravura sequences inside the factory along with five musical numbers (four of which came from Dahl) will leave you breathless. After you’ve gained back the wind that had been taken away from you by its sheer majesty, you'll find that at times it’s hard to decide whether or not it’s the delectable treats or the visual stimuli that make your mouth water but whatever the specific reason, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would make an ideal film to show children and one that would be even better suited to reward kids and grandkids with after they’ve experienced the novel for the first time.