Welcome to Killer Film’s New Release Tuesday for November 3^rd! Feel free to order from Amazon by clicking on the cover art.

G.I. Joe – Rise of Cobra

This movie is bad, but I would consider it a “so-bad-it’s-good” type of movie. Play my drinking game: whenever there’s a flashback, take a shot! (Formats: Blu-ray/DVD) Jon says: Avoid Donny says: Rent

Food, Inc.

This is one of this year’s better documentaries, and one that has changed how I eat, or rather what I eat. Seek it out ASAP. (Formats: Blu-ray/DVD) Jon says: Buy Donny says: Rent

Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

This certainly came and went at the box office, but it’s a pretty decent, yet predictable thriller. (Formats: Blu-ray/DVD) Jon says: Rent Donny says: Rent

Walt Disney Treasures: Zorro – Seasons 1 and 2

Disney’s Treasures line are superb releases, no matter the title. Full of pristine transfers and extras, they’re worth the coin each and every time. So, this release should definitely be just as solid and curious. Can’t remember the last time I saw these. (Formats: DVD only) Jon says: Buy Donny says: Buy

Aliens in the Attic

It is what it is: a silly kids film. Parents might be bored out of there mind, but here’s one interesting thing to keep your eyes on: Ashley Tisdale, as she’s in a wet bikini for most of the film (remember this is a kid’s film). (Formats: Blu-ray/DVD) Jon says: Rent Donny says: Rent

New to TV

Star Wars: The Clone Wars- The Complete Season 1 (Formats: Blu-ray/DVD)

New to Blu

North by Northwest: 50^th Anniversary

Forrest Gump

Say Anything

It’s a Wonderful Life

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Keep it here at Killer Film for reviews of these discs and more!

The Show:

Cobraaa!

For guys who grew up in the 1980s, is there anything more nostalgic to us than the G.I. Joe cartoons? They bring a smile to our faces, because those cartoons captured a perfect quality for our youth. Devoid of current politics, the rush of seeing a pro-U.S. team of heroes, rallying and defeating bad guys on the TV was incredible for young boys, especially since afterwards, we could turn around and play with those characters with our G.I. Joe toys. It was a perfect one-two punch, of smart marketing from Hasbro.

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero-The M.A.S.S. Device is the introductory mini-series that aired in September 1985 from Sunbow Productions. These five episodes, feature the evil terrorist organization of Cobra stealing a very powerful weapon called the M.A.S.S. Device that could bring the world to its knees. Before the Joes can stop Cobra, they must find three rare elements to create their own M.A.S.S. Device to combat Cobra’s plans. Will they? Of course! Yo Joe!

Seen now, after the nostalgia wears off, they are pretty campy, but that only adds to their charm. The silly comedic relief, the sinister whining from Cobra Commander, it’s a lovefest for children, since they don’t know the difference. Today, we just smile at the camp. This is the birth of the classic cartoon series, after this initial runs success, one year later another 5-part miniseries came, The Revenge of Cobra, that all but proved that this was going to be a huge franchise. Much like Filmation’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe had large, bold dialogue, creative characters that were quickly sold as a toy. The key difference between the shows, were the small amount of continuity in G.I. Joe, and better animation.

These five episodes are a lot of fun, but you got to handle the cheesiness now, something most recent animated fair, like Batman: The Animated Series or X-Men: The Animated Series, dealt away with, treating the stories as maturely as possible. But that wasn’t G.I. Joe‘s goal; it was aimed to sell toys and be fun for the little boys of the 1980s, and it was, perhaps being better than the Transformers animated series at that time. The M.A.S.S. Device is the ultimate shot of nostalgia, that should bring back a lot of fun memories.

Shout! Factory has released a full Season 1 set, featuring these episodes, as well as the other four miniseries, that when in syndication, became known as Season 1. I would recommend this DVD release, if you feel like just a little G.I. Joe could go a long way-and it does-but for the completists out there, the Season set is a better package with more extras. Just keep that in mind.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: While it is not a full-on restoration, these episodes look really good. Keep in mind that there are some dirt, but the colors and black levels are a standout. It might show its age, but I was pretty impressed. The audio has no pops or hiss, keeping with the original stereo, everything is just as good as originally aired.

Looking Back with Writer Ron Friedman: This was on the season set, but it really worth while, making it a nice addition here. Friedman was one of the original writers to the series, and offers up some really fun information and tidbits. For fans, this is a bit of Heaven.

Conclusion: This really inexpensive release is perfect for fans that think a little Joe goes along way. Shout! Factory delivers a solid release. Yo Joe!

The Show: Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The DVD: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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In the early 1960s, little girls were having all the fun, as their brothers were left with only slingshots for enjoyment, since their sisters had Barbies with all of the cool accessories. Luckily for them, Stan Weston was keen enough to see that the market for dolls with accessories was potentially huge, and that girls shouldn’t own that monopoly. So in 1964, he teamed with a little outfit named Hasbro, and gave a generation of post-WWII boys the G.I. Joe. Ever since then, little boys have been re-enacting wars, fights, and battles, while along the way burying a dead Joe or two in their mother’s flowerbed.

Such childhood products can easily fade away from memory as they grow older, but G.I. Joe not only infiltrated the wallets of their parents, they invaded pop culture by storm with the release of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in 1985 as a cartoon series. Every boy worth his salt knew of this show, watched each episode repeatedly, and still has a fondness for the silly, campy stories of morals. Through the rise of the toy line in 1964 as an 11-and-a-half inch dolls, to the later 3-inch action figures, through all of the fantasized battles, and all of the accessories, deep down every little boy secretly wanted a live action G.I. Joe movie. It seemed like a disservice to America if such a film were not to be made, and yet we all waited.

And we waited some more.

It what probably is the most anticipated movie for any male born after the inception of the G.I. Joe toy line, along all of the unfulfilled dreams, a silly thing happened. Hasbro, keen on the fantasies of little boys, crafted another toy line that got made into a major summer blockbuster, not once but twice, and made millions upon millions of dollars-Transformers. Seeing the writing on the wall, Paramount and Hasbro granted the one wish of every little boy, and green-lit our G.I. Joe movie. Yo, Joe! The more keen viewer might have to shake hands with the Devil, and say…um, thank you Michael Bay.

Despite all of the bad press this film was receiving, director Stephen Sommers was fired during production, allegedly, no press screenings, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is here. With the limitless possibilities from CGI, the imaginations of screenwriters, and the big $170 million budget, the hopes of all the little boys who wished for a live action film were dashed in what will become the first real bad movie or camp classic of this decade.

On every conceivable level, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra fails. Such a bad film as this, hasn’t graced the silver screen since Batman & Robin did back in 1997. The plot is inept as a bad softcore porn from Cinemax on a Saturday night, featuring some of the worst CG this side of the SyFy Channel, with acting and dialogue so campy and over-the-top, it makes Uwe Boll blush. A mishap on this level shouldn’t even left Stuart Bettie’s laptop to his flash drive to go to Kinkos to print it off. I’m not being cute, or purposely funny. This film is bad, with a capital B. You know, Sommers can craft a decent film, or even a mediocre one, filled with fun, outrageous action. His Mummy remake in 1999 is pretty good. While Mummy Returns and Van Helsing kind of sucked hard, he at least redeemed himself (in Steven Sommers terms) with Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, that was at least passable entertainment. Now, I mentioned that it will be destined to become a camp classic, and it shall for all of those reasons: bad acting, horrible dialogue, and plenty of “what-the-f*ck” moments. What separates it from other bad movies, is that these elements are excruciating funny, making G.I. Joe a must for midnight screenings or parties. Be prepared to make your own RiffTrax for the film. I know Mike Nelson is chopping at the bits already.

For added fun, play my drinking game I created for the film: For every flashback sequence, take a shot! Watch out for near the end, when Sienna Miller’s character, Baroness, has like 6 or 7 mini flashbacks. This game will get you blasted.

This film is insane. It’s like Super Mario Bros bad. It’s like Catwoman awful. For every little boy that has ever picked up a Joe or two, and made up a fictional battle that is more imaginative than the Star Wars mockery we got here with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, blame Paramount. Blame Hasbro. Blame even Michael Bay. There should have been no possible way this thing was made, and made the way it was. The studio executives should have laughed at the script and the film makers right out of the office.

But on second thought, I’m glad it exists. Because I now I have a new DVD to pop in, as my Plan 9 from Outer Space DVD was getting a little beat up. My friends and I are going to have a blast; laughing, hollering, and enjoying ourselves with my drinking game. Man, oh man, are we going to get sloppy. Good thing nobody will be driving. I want all of my friends safe, and no DUIs, because knowing is only half the battle.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Welcome to New Release Tuesday for July 14^th! Be sure to click on cover art for all of your Amazon buying needs! It might sound like self-promotion, but it goes along way to keeping Killer Film killer. Now, on with the week’s releases!

A Haunting in Connecticut

The trailer made this seem like it was going to be an actually frightening haunted house film, but alas, it’s highly mediocre-at best. Also on Blu Ray. Jon says: Rent  Donny says: Rent

G.I. Joe: Season 1.1

Yeah! Go Joe! Nostaglia can be fun dammit, and whether or not the new live action film is any good, I’m glad a new generation of fans can watch this, with solid extras. Jon says: Buy  Donny says: Buy

[REC]

Once dubbed the best horror film you (meaning Americans) haven’t seen is finally out. With the remake, Quarantine, I just hope that film’s weaknesses won’t hurt the viewing of this. Supposedly, it’s damn good. Jon says: Rent  Donny says:Rent

For All Mankind – Criterion Collection

Here’s you art house pick, a fine Criterion space documentary. Expect great extras. Also on Blu Ray. Jon says: Rent  Donny says:Rent

The Edge of Love

Made with all of the intentions of being Oscar bait, for some reason got straight up dumped. Stars my babe, Keira Knightley. Also on Blu Ray. Jon says: Rent  Donny says:Rent

New to Blu

Towering Inferno

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

As always, keep it here to Killer Film for more news and reviews on these discs and more! Feel free to comment away, email us, or join the forums!

Don’t forget to support Killer Film by clicking on the DVD covers of any of the above DVDs to purchase them from Amazon, because every DVD sold from this site sends a little coin our way and that coin helps us stay online.

Finally, for the first time on DVD, X-Men: The Animated Series comes roaring to the format in all of its glory in season sets (dubbed volumes). You can almost hear Shuki Levy’s score now, the pulsating theme tune that is so memorable even a decade after the last episode aired. To mark this special event, Killer Film takes a look back at the ground-breaking series, through the words of it’s creators, writers, and voice talent in, Remembering the X-Men: The Animated Series. This is part one as told by the Fox network executive Sidney Iwanter and Supervising Producer of the show, Scott Thomas.

Pryde of the X-Men

It late 1989, the X-Men started off as a one off pilot episode, trying to get the Fox network interested in the property, called Pryde of the X-Men. Focusing on Kitty Pryde, the episode was well animated, but a flop in every other regard. It felt like a collection of bits, edited together like a superhero introduction montage. Wolverine was vastly butchered as they cast him having an Australian accent. Sidney Iwanter, a Fox Kids network executive at the time recalls this pilot: “It was crap! I remember making a real smart ass remark about that, and that was a Marvel production in 1987, in one of my interviews. It was like every conceivable mistake that could be done to the X-Men series, was right there in that show. I’m not talking about the animation compared to ours, that’s a financial problem, but storytelling-how you developed the characters, like the slip-shot approach to who Wolverine was. I think they gave him an Australian accent! It was the worst kind of slopping storytelling. Why in the name of God would you do a show around Kitty Pryde?! I don’t understand that, I mean who the f**k is Kitty Pryde! She’s not one of the major X-Men! It was a simple show; it was a throwaway. They used it as a pilot to get the network interested. The network looked at it and said, what’s the point? We don’t get it, who cares.”

The majority of fans felt the same way, despite it airing a few times before being released on VHS.

“I’ve looked at that, and I was slack-jawed!” he confesses. “This was Marvel and what the hell were they trying to do? I knew what they were trying to do, they were being safe. They were trying to take Moby Dick, and turn it into the most generic fishing story! When I got hired and my boss said, ‘What would you do?’ Remember, I was never a comic book geek. I would read them every so often, but I was not somebody who knew what was going on, on panel 62, issue 312. I was a normal reader of comic books as a kid, then moved away to the graphic novel later on. But a fanatic I wasn’t. However, I was aware of the history of the X-Men, like many of the story lines, but I was also aware of how complex and sophisticated these characters had become. Remember, the X-Men started in 1961, and so as they grew, their world grew, and more characters came to developed within the universe, the stories became very sophisticated especially with the Claremont stuff. You can’t do X-Men properly until you really, really, do them as sophisticated as ever been seen on a Saturday morning.”

Even though the property failed to excite the network, Sidney was well aware of how to get it right. Luckily, Marvel was listening.

We are talking about 76 of the best action/adventure shows for kid’s programming!

Sidney Iwanter had an idea of how to get this property the respect he knew it deserved, as well as the fans. “You have to ask yourself: what was it about these episodes that made you want to sit down in front of the TV on a Saturday morning? I’ve given a couple of interviews on this in the last couple of years, and I’ve been in this game for a long time, I just turned 60, and I’m one of these geeks. When you look at these shows from your age, you see the type of sophisticated writing- forget the animation, the animation was what it was, and that was due primarily to budget. They didn’t have the same resources as Warner Bros for Batman: The Animated Series, who spent $500,000-$600,000 per episode, that’s the reason they look as good as they do.”

Scott Thomas, the supervising producer for the series adds this about the animation quality control of the show: “You know, it was later with this studio, a good Korean studio, but I don’t think the problem was there with them. The cost of the episodes were getting more expensive, so they were experimenting with looking at a studio in China, the Philippines, and Vietnam. They would all do one minute tests. It’s amazing to see the differences in each studio. Some would have good animation, but the characters would be completely different. It just would be to much of a change so we stuck it out with the studio we had, but they were experimenting with different avenues.”

“I was the network executive for Fox for Batman, Beetlejuice, Spider-Man, Silver Surfer eventually, and X-Men,” says Sidney Iwanter, “all of the shows the kids watched in the 90s. I remember when I first got into this business, the Hanna Barbara from the 60s, and I knew the guys who did Scooby Doo, and I examined the scripts and they’re  okay, it’s Scooby Doo. But when they do action/adventure shows, they were very linear storytelling. It was like reading spark notes all the time.”

Recreating X-Men

“So I thought to myself: why do they have to be this simple?” remembered Sidney Iwanter. “Somebody once asked me who my influences were. My answer was this: it was not animators, when it came to this kind of world, mainly because I can’t draw. I liked cartoons and all of that, but I was always intrigued by story. Why do some shows work and others don’t, whether it be live-action or animation? It always boiled down, not to the visuals, it was story. Go back to Scooby Doo. It’s visuals weren’t anything to write home about; sure you got a cute dog, goofy characters, but there’s nothing really about those characters that are life affirming. The stories were very simple, but were always very show eccentric. You really couldn’t have any new format. Scooby always had to get scared, Shaggy and Scooby, there was a format that worked. In an action/adventure shows, that’s not that easy to do. You can’t really do formulaic writing because what happens is that you know exactly what happens. In comedies, that works. When Scooby opens a door and gets scared it works. Okay, fine, we laugh.”

Iwanter continues: “You can’t do that in action/adventure. You’re not going for humor, you’re going for drama, suspense, and mystery. In the 1980s, I spent a lot of my time watching prime time shows, even though I was in children’s programming. The shows that I saw that moved television way beyond anything prior to the 60s and 70s, were Hill Street Blues. I looked at Hill Street Blues and I saw “holy mother mackerel! This is sophisticated storytelling, multi-dimensional characters, didn’t end at end the of each episode, as they continued. It had the level of characterization that I had never seen before on prime time programming in this country. I thought: ‘I wonder if you could do the same thing in kids programming?’ You would have story and character arcs, sophisticated dialogue that didn’t sound generic or without meat behind it. Wonder if you could do characters with depth. If you remember the G.I. Joe, the Transformers, stuff like that, those were very, very, linear, straightforward stories. Did you know anything about these characters before hand or after? No, not really. Those G.I. Joe’s were G.I. Joe’s, you know, sometimes they would delve into something or another, but there wasn’t meat behind those characters.”

“We did stuff here that had never, ever been done on a Saturday. Fox had just started in 1990, one of the first networks who got into the market since the 50s. I kept saying to people, how do we make this not to look like G.I. Joe? Let’s go back to the stuff I’d seen in Hill Street Blues. Everyone thought I was nuts, crazy. Multilayer story arcs, that remained open week to week, character development that dealt way beyond the superficial, you know?”

The kids aren’t stupid!

“From Saturday morning to Saturday morning, how are you going to keep kids interested? You’re going to have to remember what happened the week before. It was a totally different kind of world back then. Why don’t we do what they did on prime time, like the previously on? If I remember correctly, I don’t think anything on Saturday morning prior did that. I got a lot of blow-back on that idea. They said, you can’t do that, kids aren’t going to follow that, no matter how sophisticated the ‘previously ons’ are. I don’t believe kids are that stupid. I have never underestimated my audience,” remarks Sidney Iwanter.

“If its edited properly,” says Sidney, “then I’ll give you a one minute recap that will bring everyone up to speed. If adults can figures this out, then kids can figure it out. So that’s what we did. They hit the high points of the previous episodes, really edited well. Also, I wasn’t afraid to get melodramatic. There was a love gist between Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey. I had people question why I was getting involved with that. ‘Why would an 8 year old want to see that? They are going to turn this off!’ You don’t understand kids I said, this has nothing to do with girls having koodies, this is exactly what life is about. Kids see this all the time, whether its their parents or siblings liking each other. We’re hardwired for this stuff, hardwired from the womb. You can have this stuff as long as it’s between fight sequences. No matter how powerful the X-Men are, let’s face it: they’re f**ked!”

“People don’t like them although they’re saving the world, they go to jail, their social lives suck and with all that power they have, they somehow can’t settle anything in their own lives. That was the key. Seven or eight year old kids are powerless. No matter how much power the X-Men had, they too were powerless. Not to be feared, not to be alone. We were tapping into the basic nature of being a kid. That was the genius of the creation of the X-Men; when you developed you’re powers it was at puberty. The world gets more confusing. Society is forcing limitations, but you’re branching out socially and intellectually. Okay, that’s exactly what we did with these characters. No matter how much power Cyclops has, he still cannot get the girl of his dreams.

Wolverine is more than insubordinate. Here’s a guy who is really pissed off. His life didn’t go the way he thought. Even Beast would’ve loved to be a simple professor. Giving Beast a form of intellectualism when he spoke was a character trait. I said to Eric (Lewald, the story editor for the show) you put into his mouth stuff as if he lives by a Thesaurus. So in the middle of fights he would quote philosophers as if they were throwaway lines. It’s a personality quirk. I wanted to make sure none of these characters talked alike. Even thinking as logically as that, was break through,” confesses Sidney Iwanter.

“Sidney (Iwanter) was really involved with this series,” remembers Scott Thomas. “We’d have fights with the censors, sometimes our villains and characters were rather risqué, for Saturday morning, so we had to go back and change that, which was always funny to me. Each episode was different, and we would get a memo saying what was way too risqué, you know and changed it. Little things like you couldn’t have a devil’s tail on this character, you know all kinds of different things.”

“If it wasn’t for the writing this show would be as forgettable as anything in the 80s,” Sidney Iwanter proclaims. “It all boils down to how good the writing was on these characters. For what we were trying to do, and we couldn’t do this without Eric Lewald and his team of writers, the reason for the shows success was the writing.”

To be continued….

Come back soon for part two of this multi-part look at Remembering the X-Men: Animated Series as Eric Lewald joins us, along with Sidney Iwanter and Scott Thomas again, as they give us a detailed look at the writing of the shows episodes and the casting of the X-Men. Future parts will include the voice talent and their fond memories, so don’t miss out on those! Feel free to contact me at jon@killerfilm.com for any questions or leave a comment!

G.I Joe: Rise of the Cobra opens in theaters everywhere August 7th, 2009.

Check  out the latest trailer HERE

Source: Allocine

Of course, the actor who shot to fame on 3rd Rock from the Sun and The Lookout did not divulge any details as to how he would actually look, but hopefully expectations will be raised now since during last month’s screenings of G.I Joe reviews were less than stellar.

G.I Joe Rise of Cobra opens everywhere on August 7th, 2009

Source: Associated Press

Not much to report here other how horrible they look, especially “The Doctor”.  Certainly does not raise expectations on the film.

Source: /film

Another cool Watchmen poster.

I’m really excited about this flick.  Del Toro is an amazing actor and Soderbergh is a stellar director.

I don’t know much about this flick, but the poster is sweet.

Sweet ass!

This flick looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.  Monsters are cool!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we finally saw a trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar?!

Source:Fs.net