Watch These Films (WTF) Shorts Block
Director and Writer Ronald Short’s horror comedy is a great little Halloween treat just a few months before the festivities begin, and I loved the spirit behind it. Short’s horror comedy leans more heavily in to comedy as a small Frankenstein monster Halloween decoration causes chaos in the house of a normal married couple one night.
Coming Soon from Unearthed Films.
Toshiki Takaya’s anime and manga are science fiction body horror martial arts chaos mixed in with a ton of concepts involving corporations, mutant aliens, and genetics. America saw “mutants” and ran with it in an effort to kind of build upon the winning formula of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” In effect, 1991’s American adaptation of “The Guyver” takes the very gory original material and transforms it in to a silly, but absolutely fun love letter to Japanese culture and just horror in general. With the help of Screaming Mad George’s amazing special effects, director Steve Wang realizes a lot of concepts from the original source material that would have otherwise been utterly impossible in 1991.
Which Is Witch (1949)
Directed by Friz Freleng
Written by Tedd Pierce
Animation by Arthur Davis
Music by Carl Stalling
Like “All This and Rabbit Stew” and “Nips the Nips,” this one is strictly for hardcore Bugs Bunny completists. It’s not that “Which is Witch” is so unabashedly racist and filled with racial stereotypes. It’s that it’s so painfully unfunny. Even at his worst director Friz Freleng can pull out a few chuckles here and there, but “Which is Witch” trades good solid laughs and prime comedy in order to once again punch down and turn a gross racist caricature in for Bugs Bunny to use as a source of utter humiliation. When Cartoon Network was a big name in the animation medium, the network would hold annual weekend long marathons of Bugs Bunny shorts titled “June Bugs.”
Now Available from Warner Home Entertainment.
“Welcome Back Kotter” is mainly known as the launch pad for John Travolta’s huge career beginnings, but on its own it’s a solid sitcom. “Welcome Back Kotter” garners a fun premise teeming with so much comedic cache, and it’s remained immortal thanks to John Sebastian’s theme “Welcome Back.” Sebastian who spent most of his career in the band Loving Spoonful delivers on a theme that sets the stage for the series quite well and is definitely catchy enough to where you’ll hum along to it on occasion. Comedian Gabriel Kaplan is a teacher who returns to New York to teach in an inner city school.
He’s an idealist tasked with teaching the special ed class which is taken up by local gang “The Sweathogs.” Kotter, being an ex-“Sweathog,” takes an interest in getting his students in the right track amounting to some hilarity.
Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi TV.
Aw hell, I’m always complaining about wanting to see something new and Rebecca Eskreis’ “ClearMind” is something new. It’s such a mixing of genres that it eventually comes out of the other end as this unusual amalgam that’s hard to peg down. I dare you to peg this in one hole. It’s a dramatic science fiction situation comedy about grief that follows a woman who uses virtual reality to become a slasher. There are shades of horror, and satire about new age medicine and the quackery of nonsense like Goop et al. It’s so far and away amorphous that it’s tough to hate it.
Now Exclusively in Theaters.
2015’s “Inside Out” felt like such a genuine and sincere attempt to figure out not just emotions but the importance that both negative and positive emotions can have. It simplified itself through normal subconscious cues like colors and characters, but through it all “Inside Out” was touching and a complex look at dealing with our feelings and learning to accept them. “Inside Out 2” is a perfectly okay follow up that has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor set the bar high and the sequel never quite hits that bar. “Inside Out 2” is stuck in the middle of trying to figure out what it’s trying to say and hitting that bottom line of introducing new characters for the sake of merchandise sales.
Frigid Hare (1949)
Directed by Chuck Jones
Written by Michael Maltese
Animation by Phil Monroe
Music by Carl Stalling
I think “Frigid Hare” is the point in Bugs Bunny’s career when he stopped being a mere foil or protagonist and started being something of a hero. When he finally steps up to defend a small penguin named “Playboy,” who–a very small cute penguin… from the wrath of an inuit. That’s the exact time Bugs started becoming something of a hero for the little guy. All of the other scenarios of Bugs giving in to his baser urges to be egomaniacal, or just plain antagonistic are a bar he’s just toppled. With “Frigid Hare” the animators and writers set a high bar with a short where we’d see him defending and fighting for other smaller animals in the near future.