D52–Melody Time

1948’s Melody Time is yet another in the series of omnibus films released by the Walt Disney Studios during the decade. It features seven segments, all set to popular music, some of it pre-existing, some written for the film.

The animation on display is good, but not particularly memorable. The variety of styles seen in earlier compilation films is mostly absent here, which removes some of the appeal. As is the norm for these films, the shorts themselves are mostly enjoyable, but this time around none are particularly memorable.

This film works best as a distraction or a historical document. Those looking for some light entertainment or the Disney completionist will get the most out of it. Anyone else, though, needn’t exert too much effort trying to ensure they see it.

No trailer appears to be available for this film.

Up next: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

D52–Fun and Fancy Free

The fourth of the Disney omnibus films, 1947’s Fun and Fancy Free features two roughly half hour segments. The first, Bongo, is follows the story of a circus bear who escapes and has to adjust to life in the wild. The second segment is a retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, casting Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as Jack, titled Mickey and the Beanstalk, and is most notable as the last time Walt Disney himself provided the voice of Mickey.

Both of the stories are simple, but are quite entertaining. The animation is clean, very comparable to the shorts the studio was producing at the time. The two segments are held together by interstitials of Jiminy Cricket as he explores two neighboring houses. One of the surprisingly enjoyable aspects of this set up is the inclusion of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, a popular entertainer at the time. The sarcastic commentary by the puppet Charlie are easily one of the highlights of the film.

Like the other omnibus films, Fun and Fancy Free is ultimately not as satisfying narratively as the true feature length films. It is, however, enjoyable from start to finish, and for a Disney fanatic worth watching solely for Walt’s final performance as his most famous creation.

Not the original 1947 trailer, but the only one that appears to be available

Next: Melody Time (1948)

Insert Title Here–Dragon Age

Every week there are tons of newly released films, Blu-rays, books, comics, and CDs, but the truth is, very few of them are worth your time. That’s where this feature comes in. Each posting attempts to highlight the best new media releases of the coming week. It’s far from exhaustive, and of course it will be mostly according to my taste, but I’ll try to do my best to include a wide variety, so hopefully you’ll see something that interests you too.

Dragon Age – Silent Grove

As summer rolls lazily along, it’s another slow week for releases. A weak theatrical Spring means there aren’t any Blu-ray releases, the studios are afraid of Batman, so they aren’t releasing anything either. About the only thing of note is the hardcover collection of the six issue Dragon Age – Silent Grove series from Dark Horse. Written by the series written, it’s very true to the spirit of the games and a good read. If you’re not interested in paying the full retail price, you can save a few bucks by buying the six issues in digital form for $0.99 each.

That’s it for this week. It looks like there are still a few more dry weeks ahead until things begin to pick up.

Sleep well,

DTE

If You’re Not, You Should Be–Batman Comics

This series is designed as a way to call attention to things, practices, places, activities, or anything else you might not be aware of that I think are worth checking out. I try to cover as wide a variety of topics as I can.

This week, with the arrival of the final Christopher Nolan Batman film in theatres, I thought it would be a good time to look at some of the classic Batman graphic novels. These can all serve as a great initiation into the world of comic reading and should be mandatory reading for any comic fan who hasn’t already checked them out.

Batman: Year One

Frank Miller’s follow-up to The Dark Knight Returns retells the Batman origin story. Released in 1987, it launched the darker, more mature version of the caped crusader that still persists to this day. Downplaying fantastical elements and emphasizing a gritty reality, this book forever changed the way we view the character and is a great starting point for anyone who (somehow) is unfamiliar with how Bruce Wayne became Batman.

The Killing Joke

Alan Moore wrote this excellent story in 1988. It pits Batman against his ultimate foe, the Joker. Over the course of its single issue, it tells the story of the Joker’s origin, nearly drives Batman insane, and changes the course of a major character’s life in a huge way. That Moore can accomplish all this in such a limited number of pages speaks volumes about his skill in the medium.

The Dark Knight Returns

The story that relaunched interest in Batman in 1986. This is widely regarded as Frank Miller’s masterpiece. It features an older Bruce Wayne who has long since left crime fighting and left Gotham to its own devices. Upon returning he discovers a city which has destroyed itself and embarks upon a final attempt to clean it up. This is a book that is so good it should be read even if you have no interest in comics. Just go pick it up.

Insert Title Here–The Dark Knight Rises

Every week there are tons of newly released films, Blu-rays, books, comics, and CDs, but the truth is, very few of them are worth your time. That’s where this feature comes in. Each posting attempts to highlight the best new media releases of the coming week. It’s far from exhaustive, and of course it will be mostly according to my taste, but I’ll try to do my best to include a wide variety, so hopefully you’ll see something that interests you too.

The Dark Knight Rises

As summer continues, it’s another slow week for new releases, at least in terms of quantity. In terms of quality, however, this week brings one of the most anticipated releases, The Dark Knight Rises. Though I’m slightly disappointed that it didn’t retain the prior naming convention of using a different name for Batman with each installment (such as Caped Crusader or World’s Greatest Detective), it’s understandable given the monster success of The Dark Knight. Early reviews indicate that it lives up to its pedigree, so this should easily be at the top of your must-see list this week.

Sleep well,

DTE

If You’re Not, You Should Be–Comic-Con

This series is designed as a way to call attention to things, practices, places, activities, or anything else you might not be aware of that I think are worth checking out. I try to cover as wide a variety of topics as I can.

Comic-Con

This week will be a little shorter, focused on only one topic. If you’re at all interested in pop culture, you are no doubt aware that Comic-Con is occurring this week. Every year this giant convention of all things relating to comics, movies, TV, games, toys, and generally all things cool takes over the city of San Diego for four days, attracting around 130 000 people. This year the tickets sold out in 84 minutes. Having attended twice, I can definitely speak to the fact that it is a great event and well worth the effort to attend. Fortunately, though, if you aren’t able to attend, you’re not completely out of luck. Nearly every panel and presentation ends up being filmed by at least one of the attendees and is typically posted to YouTube in the evening when they return to their hotels. That means that you can check out the official schedule to see what panels you would like to “attend” and then easily track them down. Even better, you don’t have to stand in any lines and can even view two panels that took place at the same time. I know I’ll be watching quite a few, and one day I’m sure I’ll be back there in person.

D52–Make Mine Music

The third of the omnibus films, Make Mine Music was originally released in 1946. It featured ten animated shorts, each set to a different musical piece, with styles ranging from classic to pop. Unfortunately, the complete film has never been released on home video in North America. Each release has removed the opening “The Martins and The Coys” sequence due to its “graphic gunplay”. Thanks to its inclusion on overseas releases, though, it is easy to track the segment down online.

The Martins and the Coy, the short censored from American releases

The shorts included in the film are genuinely entertaining. As in Saludos Amigos, the variety of animation styles, as well as music styles, keeps it constantly fresh and interesting. These varying styles also contribute helping the film feel far more modern than many of its contemporaries.

Make Mine Music will appeal most strongly to fans of Disney’s shorts, and includes several that are regarded as classics, such as “Peter and the Wolf”, “Casey at the Bat”, and “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met”. The highlight of the feature for animation buffs, though will be “All the Cats Join In”, marking Disney’s first foray into abstract style that would eventually become a defining feature of the Warner Bros. shorts. Even those without a specific interest in shorts will find plenty to enjoy in this feature and should definitely seek it out.

An undated, post release trailer for Make Mine Music

Next: Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

If You’re Not, You Should Be–Browsers

The format is going to be a little different this week. It’s no secret that there are plenty of browser options out there. If you’ve never done so, it’s definitely worthwhile to compare you options and choose the one that’s best for you. Personally, I’ve been using Firefox for years. In addition to allowing a myriad of extensions to be added to expand the capabilities of the browser, it was also the first to allow users to sync their history, passwords, open pages, and preferences across multiple computers, meaning you could easily keep your home, work, laptop, and smartphone all linked.

One area where Firefox did stumble was in its mobile version. The browser worked, but suffered from being bloated and overly slow on most handsets. The release of Chrome for Android is what really sparked this post. The beta version came out a couple months ago and was easily the best mobile browser available on any OS. Like Firefox, it also allows users to sync all of their Chrome installations, but this presented a problem for me. To get the most out of my browsers, I needed to be using the same one across all of my computing environments. Using Firefox on my desktops and Chrome on my phone negated one of the key features of both browsers. As a result, I began a three week experiment, exclusively using each browser across all platforms for a week. I began with a week on Chrome, then back on Firefox, and finally, just to be thorough, a week with Internet Explorer.

My week with Chrome started off a little rough. Rather than using Adobe Reader, Chrome renders pdf files natively. As a result, the very first pdf I tried to use refused to open. This is the only time throughout the week that I ran into this problem, but it was still not a good way to start. After that, my issues were mostly just a matter of re-thinking the way I do things. I was used to opening the browser on the home page as opposed to the first pinned tab. Pocket (formerly Read It Later) is one of my most used services and its implementation is not quite as elegant in Chrome. Both of those were fairly easily overcome. My biggest issue is one that could not be corrected – there’s no option to run a download without first saving it somewhere. This feature has long been built into Internet Explorer, but is not native to either Firefox or Chrome. With Firefox, the extension OpenDownload² can be used to add the option, but no such extension exists for Chrome. Considering how useful this is, I don’t understand why it isn’t a universal feature.

I appreciated the added speed within Chrome, as well as many of the add-ons. The Task List, the Google+ +1 and Notifications, Pin to Pinterest Right Click, and Mighty Text are all great. The new tab page allows for apps and sites to be pinned for easy access, or you can pin them to your task bar. Finally, it’s helpful that the Incognito mode allows you to keep the standard session open simultaneously.

Going back to Firefox I found that I missed much more about Chrome than I felt I gained by returning to the Fox. The “Run” button on downloads was great, as was the fact that when one tab is already locked to one side of the screen pulling out a second tab automatically resizes it to the opposite side of the screen. On the other hand, I was frustrated when it would slow down, I missed being able to specify search engines from the address bar without using the mouse, and I missed those extra extensions.

Just to be fair, I also did a week in Internet Explorer, with some time in Safari as well. The two are essentially interchangeable at this point so I’ll focus on IE. The last time I’d seriously used IE was back with IE 6. In the time since, the browser has finally evolved to the point where it is a solid product, able to keep up with the basic features of its competitors. Like Chrome, it allows you to pin some sites to the task bar for quick access, and its “Accelerators” can be helpful for quickly conducting searches from various engines with the right click. Beyond that, though, IE (and Safari) are very bare bones. They get the job done nicely, but that’s about all. If you spend any moderate amount of time online, they are not going to be the best choice for you.

So what did I settle on? As is probably obvious from the above, I’ve switched over to Chrome as my default browser on all devices, and it’s the one I’d recommend for everyone else as well. It easily syncs to all of you devices, offers lots of add ons if you’d like to do that, it’s fast and easy to use. On both Android and iOS it is easily the best browser. (It should be noted that on iOS, due to Apple’s refusal to allow for any browser engine but their own, you don’t get true Chrome, merely a Chrome skin over the stock browser, but you do get the sync and improved usability that Chrome offers). Regardless what program you currently use to access the internet, it’s definitely worth your time to download a couple alternatives and try them out for a few days. You may be surprised what you were missing out on.

Insert Title Here–Buffy, Spidey, and Stevenson

Every week there are tons of newly released films, Blu-rays, books, comics, and CDs, but the truth is, very few of them are worth your time. That’s where this feature comes in. Each posting attempts to highlight the best new media releases of the coming week. It’s far from exhaustive, and of course it will be mostly according to my taste, but I’ll try to do my best to include a wide variety, so hopefully you’ll see something that interests you too.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9 – Freefall

This trade paperback collects the first five issues of Buffy Season 9, Dark Horse Comics’ continuation of the Buffy series. As with all previous seasons, it’s executive produced by Joss Whedon, though he has taken on less of the writing duties this time around due to his commitments on The Avengers. Even so, it’s well written and all of the characters feel “right” and the narrative is still being driven by Joss’ plan. If you’re a fan of the universe, go pick this one up.

Treasure Planet Blu-ray

I know in many circles this would be considered blasphemous, but I’m not a fan of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I’ve read the book and seen various film adaptations over the years, and they have all left me cold. That is, with the exception of one. 2002’s Treasure Planet takes Stevenson’s narrative and transplants it, while taking some liberties, in space. I couldn’t tell you exactly why this version worked better for me than all the others, but I know that it was the only one I really enjoyed. At least, that is, when I saw it in theatres 10 years ago. It remains to be seen if it will have the same impact on me when I watch it now. I’ll be picking it up tomorrow, but likely won’t watch it again until it comes up in my D52 rotation, sometime in March. What I do know is that Disney has done a fantastic job mastering their animated library for Blu-ray, they are consistently the best examples for the format, so it will definitely be worth the upgrade.

The Amazing Spider-man

I’ll also be seeing this film tomorrow, though I have decidedly mixed feelings about it. I’m a huge fan of the character, but I just can’t seem to get excited about this movie. I don’t mind the fact that it has been completely recast from the previous films, or even that it’s rebooting the film universe. My biggest problem is that it will be telling the origin story AGAIN. Is there honestly anyone left in the world who would have even the slightest interest in seeing a movie called Spider-man that DOESN’T already know his origin? My hope is that the origin portion is a very brief recap, highlighting the changes made for this universe, and then we move on. The previews and word from early screenings, however, seem to indicate this will not be the case. Either way, I’ll be there tomorrow, I just hope I’m not too disappointed.

Sleep well,

DTE

Does That Make Me A Grownup?

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of me owning my own house. Well, technically the bank owns it and I, in turn, owe them a large portion of each paycheque I earn, but for all intents and purposes, it’s mine.

I survived the first year without any major catastrophes. I managed to keep it clean and kept up, filled with an adequate supply of food (both healthy and junk), got all the bills paid on time, and didn’t destroy anything. About the worst that happened was that the springs for the garage door broke and needed to be replaced. An unwelcome expense, to be sure, but not major.

In November I bought a dog, a West Highland White Terrier, Wally. Even though I’ve managed to keep from destroying anything in the house myself, Wally has more than compensated. As he was teething for the first several months, he took great pleasure in chewing the kitchen baseboards, cupboard corners, and doors, leaving them in a state that will necessitate their replacement.

After moving in, it took several weeks before I was finally able to reprogram my brain to think of this house as my new home. Even now, after having lived here for a year, my brain has a hard time grappling with the fact that I own and house. This thing is mine. Maybe part of that is related to the fact that it’s still difficult for my to view myself as a “grownup”. Houses belong to “grownups”, so if I’m not a “grownup”, I can’t have a house, right? Or does owning a house, in turn, make me a “grownup”? Of course, my girlfriend believes that the true bellwether of adulthood is the possession of a Costco card. Since I have both a house and a Costco card must therefore officially be a “grownup”. How long it will take me to accept this fact, only time will tell. Maybe by next year.

Sleep well,

DTE