You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘detective’ tag.
Director: Paul Demeyer
Airing Date: April 10, 1995
Stars: Duckman
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘America the Beautiful’ starts with a warning sign stating that “the following contains scene of heavy-handed and over-obvious allegories and is not recommended for small children and certain congressmen from the South”.
And indeed, this is an allegorical episode, with Duckman and Cornfed in search of America (who has taken form of a beautiful and noble woman) on behalf of some overtly cute little children. The quest takes them to a 1950s suburbia, a 1960s hippie university, a 1970s disco, and 1980s Wall Street. All the four have exploited America, giving nothing in return. Duckman finally finds America at a dump. The episode ends with a corny ‘We Are the World’-like song sung by all protagonists and the children called ‘We Are Here’.
The episode indeed suffers from heavy-handedness, and Duckman in particular, seems quite at loss here. The best part is when Duckman and Cornfed drive into the 1950s suburbia, which changes them from full color into black and white, prompting Cornfed to say “it appears they don’t allow people of color in this community“. Also remarkable, but much less functional is the beauty pageant-turning-into-a-big fight with which the episode opens.
Watch ‘America the Beautiful’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Duckman episode no. 18
To the previous Duckman episode: Inherit the Judgement: The Dope’s Trial
To the next Duckman episode: The Germ Turns
‘America the Beautiful’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Duckman – The Complete Series’
Director: John Eng
Stars: Duckman
Airing Date: May 28, 1994
Rating: ★★★★★
In what is arguably one of the most inspired Duckman episodes of all, Duckman is the unlikely star of a reality television show called ‘American Dicks’, a spoof on the television series Cops, which first appeared on television in 1989, and still runs.
In this episode Duckman suppossedly is followed by a cameraman with a hand-held camera, which leads to scenes with odd staging, distorted body parts, as Duckman and the others repeatedly talk into the camera, and even animated backgrounds, a rare feat since the early 1930s.
Moreover, the images are more often than not in constant motion, suggesting camera movements and even walking. This is done with such skill that the ‘documentary camera style’ is evoked very convincingly, despite the looney images within them.
This episode is one of the very few episodes in which Duckman veritably is a private detective, even if he turns out to be the worst and most oblivious one around, leaving it to Cornfed to solve the case.
What doesn’t help is that Aunt Bernice interferes with the program when she learns that the audience is predominantly male between the age of 20 and 55. Promptly, she advertises herself as wedding material. During the finale there are even severe closeups of her breasts and buttocks.
Even the kids get their moments in this episode, which is full of great gags, both in visually as in the soundtrack. A true classic.
Watch ‘American Dicks’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Duckman episode no. 11
To the previous Duckman episode: Cellar Beware
To the next Duckman episode: About Face
‘American Dicks’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Duckman – The Complete Series’
Director: John Eng
Stars: Duckman
Airing Date: April 9, 1994
Rating: ★★★★
‘Gland of Opportunity’ starts with the family being stuck in a long traffic jam on their way to an amusement park, loosely based on Disneyland.
Inside the amusement park, Duckman and his family spend the rest of the day waiting in an overlong line for a roller coaster, but Duckman chickens out just before the ride.
In a rather incomprehensible scene switch he suddenly finds himself in a hospital about to get an andrenoid gland transplant. He goes through with it in the hope to get more courage, and to become more of a role model to his kids.
And indeed, as soon he awakes, and convinces himself he has the gland of a deceased daredevil he becomes a superhero, solving crimes by the dozen and becoming a superstar in now time. But he also is a bad influence on his kids, whom he takes from school to experience ‘the school of life’, which is one long trip around the world. It’s up to Cornfed to restore the situation.
What’s great about ‘Gland of Opportunity’ is that the makers make clear that Duckman’s newborn drive may be originated in a delusion, but that it’s motivated by Duckman’s desire to be respected and admired by his sons. Of course, in the end he utterly fails, but by then we viewers have had a wonderful roller coaster ride of an episode.
Watch ‘Gland of Opportunity’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Duckman episode no. 5
To the previous Duckman episode: Psyche
To the next Duckman episode: Ride the High School
‘Gland of Opportunity’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Duckman – The Complete Series’
Directors: various
Release Date: June 3, 2003
Rating: ★★½
Review:
The enormous success of ‘The Matrix’ (1999) not only spawned two sequels, but also a direct-to-video release with several animation films, expanding the film’s theme and providing some background history.
‘The Animatrix’ is an American/Japanese/South Korean co-production and consists of nine parts, produced by four different animation film studios (Square, Studio 4°C, Madhouse Studios and DNA). The nine parts differ a lot in style, content and quality, and the end result is pretty uneven to say the least. However, for fans of ‘The Matrix’ it contains very welcome background material to The Matrix universe.
1. Final Flight of the Osiris
Director: Andy Jones
Rating: ★★★½
The first of the nine segments of The Animatrix is the most straightforward. It’s a dark action episode that tells what happened to the Osiris, a human vessel that shortly appears in ‘The Matrix’. The Square Studio, then already famous for the groundbreaking animation in ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’ (2001), tops itself with for 2003 ultra-realistic computer animation, with human characters of a then unsurpassed realism. Especially its opening sequence, an erotic martial arts fight, is impressive and made many viewers doubt whether it was real or not they were looking at.
2. & 3. The second Renaissance
Director: Mahiro Maeda
★★★½
Made by Studio 4°C and brought in two episodes, The Second Renaissance tells us what happened before the Matrix in an American anime-style. It uses a robotic female voice-over to tell us about a robotic revolution and a human-robot-war which ends in defeat for the human population, which is then used as an energy source for the robots. These episodes are the most satisfying as an addition to The Matrix trilogy.
4. Kid’s Story
Director: Shinichirô Watanabe
Rating: ★
‘Kid’s Story’ is the first of four episodes dealing with people who discover the matrix. This episode is about a teenager who doubts reality and who wakes up in the real world. The episode uses a very realistic, yet graphic style that is very American and rather ugly. Especially the animation (by Studio 4°C) is slow, unsightly and unsteady, making it one of the most unappealing parts of ‘The Animatrix’ to watch.
5. Program
Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Rating: ★★
‘Program’ is another weak entry in ‘The Animatrix’. Animated by Madhouse Studios and drawn in a rather American comics/anime-style and using sharp shades, it tells about a treacherous character trying to persuade a girl to join him in a Japanese samurai setting (the program the two are in). The whole episode is rather melodramatic and forgettable.
6. World Record
Director: Takeshi Koike
Rating: ★
By far the most unappealing of all episodes of ‘The Animatrix’, ‘World Record’, by Madhouse studios, is drawn in a a gruesomely ugly comics design to tell the story of an athlete who discovers the matrix and who has to pay for it.
7. Beyond
Director: Kôji Morimoto
Rating:★★★★
Studio 4°C’s ‘Beyond’ is the third of four Animatrix episodes about people who discover the matrix, and it is easily the best of the lot. Set in Japan, it tells about a young woman, who is looking for her cat Yuki, and who’s led by some kids to a house where the ‘program’ has gone haywire, resulting in some wonderful surreal effects (like objects defying gravity). Unlike the rest, the episode has a lighthearted feel to it, which is enhanced by its appealing graphic anime design and its excellent animation, which makes clever use of 3D-effects. More than in any other part of the Animatrix one has the feeling that this episode is about real people in a real environment. The short is another showcase for Morimoto’s great direction skills, which he had already shown with the ‘Magnetic Rose’ sequence in the compilation feature ‘Memories‘ (1995).
8. A Detective Story
Director: Shinichirô Watanabe
Rating: ★
‘A Detective Story’ is the fourth and last episode about people who discover the matrix. This episode is about a private detective and it uses all film noir cliches, including a very trite voice over. The nice black and white backgrounds evoke a forties atmosphere, even though the story is about hackers and chat rooms. But they cannot hide Studio 4°C’s very limited animation or the corny story, making ‘A Detective Story’ one of the weakest episodes of this package film.
9. Matriculated
Director: Peter Chung
Rating: ★★★★
Penned and directed by Æon Flux-director Peter Chung and produced by the Korean DNA studio, ‘Matriculated’ is the most philosophical of the nine episodes of ‘The animatrix’. The story is set in the ‘real’ world. It deals with humans who try to make robots defending them by making them dream. Although its angular human designs are once again quite unattractive, this episode’s clever story makes it one of the highlights of ‘The Animatrix’.
Watch the trailer for ‘The Animatrix’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: unknown
Release Date: February 15, 1926
Stars: Margie Gay (Alice), Julius
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Two dog catchers, a bear and a mouse, catch a whole school of dogs.
They also lure some dogs using a girl dog on a balcony. They all end in a prison-like sausage factory, which contains a death chamber. We see a dog actually walk in there (after having been salvaged by a dog priest). He comes out as a string of sausages… Luckily, detectives Alice (Margie Gay) and Julius free all remaining dogs.
This cartoon contains quite some flexible animation, especially of the bear emptying the school.
Watch ‘Alice’s Mysterious Mystery’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Alice’s Mysterious Mystery’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 