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When the first few CG animated films invaded theaters, it felt like the first few times I saw 2D animated movies. Magical and fantastic. I just had to see them on the big screen where it’s bigger than life. But once CG animated films became a-dime-a-dozen, I kind of got tired of seeing every new release. I mean, in its early years, 1 or 2 CG animated films a year made it special. Right now, I’m getting sick of all these talking animals and cheesy pop songs. But there are still a few exceptional CG animated films out there. One of them is The Incredibles.

The Story: I love the juxtaposition of the insanely fantastic and exciting lives of superheroes and the wickedly boring and mundane sub-urban family life. To paraphrase director Brad Bird, it’s an interesting contrast between the fantastic and the mundane. As a comic book geek, I specifically enjoyed the drama that develops around the superheroes’ secret identities. Most CG animated films are geared for the younger audience, but The Incredibles offers something to everyone with a world where superheroes exist, and superheroes who have “real world” problems. I heard this was originally planned to be a 2D animated movie. Frankly, if they went for the original plan, I would have enjoyed it just the same.

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There are no words that can describe how happy I am about Viva Video bringing in Marvel Entertainment’s straight-to-DVD animated features like Ultimate Avengers, Ultimate Avengers 2, and this movie here featuring Ol’ Shellhead: The Invincible Iron Man.

The Story: This got some comic book traditionalists up in arms with their panties in a bunch. Uptight pricks. I, on the other hand, don’t mind the film creators doing some modifications and upgrades on the mythos because first, I wasn’t an Iron Man fan until Civil War came along, so I really don’t give a crap about Iron Man continuity. Second, why would you want an animated feature to be 100% faithful to the medium it’s based on? Stories and characters in comics, no matter how iconic, don’t always equal great entertainment when ported brick-by-brick to another medium. And third, the story of ancient magics meeting bleeding edge technologies, with a dash of daddy issues, works for me. The Ultimate Avengers movies gave me a bigger geekgasm, but this one gave me a more satisfying story.

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I have missed several high-profile movies in the last few months… no, scratch that. I’ve missed several great films in the last couple of years! Thank the dark lord Satan for DVD’s. Okay, put the goddamn lightning bolt down, God. I’m just kidding. Jeez. We all know you had a hand in it too. Anyhoo, as I was saying, good thing there are DVD’s to let me catch up on the films I missed in the theater, like this one I’m about to talk about: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

The Story: It’s simple, really. Kazakh TV personality Borat Sagdiyev, along with his documentary crew, goes to America to learn the ways and the stuff that makes the U.S. of A. the “greatest country in the world”. But like all great men, his weakness comes in the form of plastic boobs and blonde hair. His obsession with Pamela Anderson makes him travel across America, endangering their mission. It’s a plot that has been done to death already by several sophomoric comedies that aren’t really funny. This movie, though, is different. Within the simplistic plot lies several face-melting funny gags and practical jokes sprinkled with bigotry, misogyny, toilet humor, male nudity, and tasteless words. In the end, you’ll realize that the real story lies in the reactions, opinions, and actions of the American people “interviewed” by Borat. Very nice.

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OK I’m starting another stupid “series” again, and this time, it’s all about DVDs. In my Weekly Haul series, I talk about my most recent comic book purchases. For this new series, I’m going to talk about my recent DVD purchases, and I’d like to call it *drumroll* DVD Library! I am so creative.

I shall start with a movie that took more than 10 months before I saw it. A movie that took more than a decade to finally push through. A movie that’s supposed to be the biggest and greatest comic book movie of our time, but sadly became another would-be usurper to Spider-Man’s throne. I’m talking about Superman Returns.

The Story: I’m just satisfied and not blown away. I’m also mildly irritated since they say the first Superman movie is a pseudo-prologue of this movie. That’s a confusing statement. I just wish they didn’t say that and instead, started from scratch like Batman Begins. They could’ve still paid homage to Richard Donner’s movie by putting in sly nods to it, instead of dwelling on it too much. And the kid! The goddamn kid. Don’t get me wrong, the kid’s a nice addition to the mythos, and a great source of drama for the characters, but it just feels so wrong. And I’d like to hear Bryan Singer explain how the hell did it exactly happen. You do not tug on Superman’s cape, and you do not give him a bastard son!

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I’ve just purchased two awesome DVDs: Ultimate Avengers: The Movie and Ultimate Avengers 2. They’re both straight-to-DVD movies based on the Marvel comic The Ultimates by Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch. They where just made available here in the Philippines recently. I was almost about to give in to the urge of buying pirated copies since I thought they won’t be released here. Patience is my friend.

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