SETI Movie Reviews

I saw this series when it was broadcast on Cartoon Network a few years ago, and I was hooked on it from the first episode! I'm not usually a fan of big robots that duke it out in the streets, but the characters and the visual style of this anime really drew me in. I'm a big fan of Art Deco (same reason I liked Batman: The Animated Series, which shares some of the same production staff), and this series is loaded with it, from the buildings, to the vehicles, to the film noir feeling that pervades the entire series.

Roger Smith is probably one of the smoothest cats in anime, yet even he gets blindsided every now and then by questions from his unflappable robot maid/ward/royal pain in the keister, R. Dorothy Wayneright.

Case in point: Roger and Dorothy are investigating the kidnapping of the son of a prominent Paradigm industrialist (in the episode, "Beck Comes Back"). Discussing the son's parents, who met after losing their memories in the Event, Dorothy says she has two questions for Roger. The first one is, "Does losing your memory really make you that lonely?" Roger says it's a tough question to answer, but makes a go of it, then asks Dorothy what the 2nd question is. "Forget it," she says. "If you thought the last one was tough, this one is worse." Dorothy is damaged in the battle to retrieve the industrialist's son, and Roger asks Norman, his capable butler, to take care in repairing her so she can ask the question...and what is the question? "If you and I lost our memories, and we met, would we fall in love?" That one renders Roger speechless...

There are many such moments, as well as ones that speak a little too close to home, such as the dangers of genetic manipulation, nuclear holocaust, and evil that disguises itself as benevolence.

Luckily there is a second set of 13 episodes to help answer some of the questions raised by the first season! The voice acting is well done (you'll hear familiar voices if you're a fan of Cowboy Bebop) and the music is very cool. Enjoy!

This isn't just an animated Noir film. And Smith isn't Bruce Wayne. The similarities end at their reserved cloths and fast cars. This series has got teeth. With plot twists that will leave you asking what's next. Great recuring charaters like the lovely Angle who is defintly much more than she seems. Great gagetry, Smith's sleek black sedan, the "Griffon" is a stylish rolling arsenal at Roger's command via remote wristwatch control. Great accompaning musical score. From the "Big O" theme to the soleful sax music used for incidental and panoramic scenes. Great dialoge and voice actors to boot. The scenes with Roger and Dorthy are some of the great ones. Dorthy is constantly exploring what is to be human, all the while pointing out Roger's shortcomings. Many in comic deadpan that will leave you laughing. Their relationship growing through the series. Finally I will say this. This series is definatly for people looking for something more than you average Saterday moring cartoon. This isn't kiddy stuff. This is thought provoking and mesmerising at the same time. -we have come to terms-

So if you are a fan of the true Dawson`s Creec of S1 and S2 you don`t need this DVD. Save the money. If you are a D/J fan, don`t buy it. But if you like the show since S3 or if you are a P/J you`ll love it...

Now one word to Mr. Williamson:

I was happy to read that you`re gonna write the finale. Not because of D/J but because of the real Dawson`s Creek feeling of S1 and S2. But you screwed it.
So I "love" you and I say thank you for creating Dawson`s Creek and giving us S1 and S2. But I "hate" you for the ending of the show.

It certainly makes up in quality for the disappointing last two seasons of the show, and puts the characters all back in that place we found them, the fictional seaside town of Capeside, MA.

Although I personally could have done without the tragic melodrama, I thought this was a perfect series ender because of one important reason: they finally got it right.

I don't think anyone who has watched these characters over the years and has become invested in their stories can help but feel cheated in how they were treated in the show's final two seasons. But all wrongs seem to be righted here and we are treated to wonderful moments between the core group of Jack, Jen, Dawson, Pacey and Joey.

The issue of the Dawson-Pacey-Joey triangle is also wrapped up perfectly, as the Dawson and Joey saga had been played out to a tired, gasping death over the years. All that we really ever saw of these two was how wrong they were for each other and how miserable they made each other. All in the name of soap operatic drama, I know...but they definitely crossed the line into relationship purgatory with this story and it actually would have been depressing should they have chosen to go with that ending.

Pacey and Joey, on the other hand, had an actual romantic love story that we got to see unfold on screen over the span of a couple of seasons, a nice slow burn from from the first spark of secret feelings tentatively explored to falling head-over-heels in love and literally sailing off into the sunset (another reason why the Dawson and Joey ending would have fell flat in comparison). These two characters were simply a delight to watch when they were together and their undeniable chemistry is also highlighted here (and even discussed at length by the show's creator in the commentary, which, by the way, is worth the price of the DVD alone for any fan of the show from the beginning).

There are deleted scenes included that don't really do a lot to add to the plot, but are fun to watch: a nice scene between Pacey and his brother Doug and the return of Andie for a decent good-bye her fans never got. There is also a great montage at the end that didn't air on television that is a wonderful added bonus.

This is a must-buy DVD for any true fan of the show. If you can get past that notion that Joey for some sad and inexplicable reason was supposed to end up romantically with her best friend Dawson, then you will be able to sit back and appreciate it for what it is: a truly, wonderful good-bye present to its fans.

Again, the commentary by Kevin Williamson and Paul Stupin is just terrific and so fun to listen to.

There is one problem with the DVD - the case says it's 1 hour and 25 minutes long. I have been watching for 2 hours and there's no end in sight. I'll save the end of it for another day, but beware if you think it's a quick watch.

Well, my preconceptions were wrong.

First of all, for those who think that Tom Cruise is just another pretty boy (which was basically my opinion), this movie sets that mistaken notion to rest. He is nothing short of brilliant in a role that is enormously demanding--physically, mentally, artistically, and emotionally. I don't see how anybody could play that role and still be the same person. Someday in his memoirs, Tom Cruise is going to talk about being Ron Kovic as directed by Oliver Stone.

And second, Stone's treatment of the sex life of Viet Vets in wheelchairs is absolutely without sentimentality or silver lining. There are no rose petals and no soft pedaling. There was no Jane Fonda, as in Coming Home, to play an angel of love. Instead the high school girl friend understandably went her own way, and love became something you bought if you could afford it.

And third, Stone's depiction of America--and this movie really is about America, from the 1950s to the 1970s--from the pseudo-innocence of childhood war games and 4th of July parades down Main street USA to having your guts spilled in a foreign land and your brothers-in-arms being sent home in body bags--was as indelible as black ink on white parchment. He takes us from proud moms and patriotic homilies to the shameful neglect in our Veteran's hospitals to the bloody clashes between anti-war demonstrators and the police outside convention halls where reveling conventioneers wave flags and mouth phony slogans.

I have seen most of Stone's work and as far as fidelity to authentic detail and sustained concentration, this is his best. There are a thousand details that Stone got exactly right, from Dalton Trumbo's paperback novel of a paraplegic from WW I, Johnny Got His Gun, that sat on a tray near Kovic's hospital bed, to the black medic telling him that there was a more important war going on at the same time as the Vietnam war, namely the civil rights movement, to a mother throwing her son out of the house when he no longer fulfilled her trophy case vision of what her son ought to be, to Willem DaFoe's remark about what you have to do sexually when nothing in the middle moves.

Also striking were some of the scenes. In particular, the confession scene at the home of the boy Kovic accidentally shot; the Mexican brothel scene of sex/love desperation, the drunken scene at the pool hall bar and the pretty girl's face he touches, and then the drunken, hate-filled rage against his mother, and of course the savage hospital scenes--these and some others were deeply moving and likely to haunt me for many years to come.

Of course, as usual, Oliver Stone's political message weighed heavily upon his artistic purpose. Straight-laced conservatives will find his portrait of America one-sided and offensive and something they'd rather forget. But I imagine that the guys who fought in Vietnam and managed to get back somehow and see this movie, will find it redemptive. Certainly to watch Ron Kovic, just an ordinary Joe who believed in his country and the sentiments of John Wayne movies and comic book heroics, go from a depressed, enraged, drug-addled waste of a human being to an enlightened, focused, articulate, and ultimately triumphant spokesman for the anti-war movement, for veterans, and the disabled was wonderful to see. As Stone reminds us, Kovic really did become the hero that his misguided mother dreamed he would be.

No other Vietnam war movie haunts me like this one. There is something about coming back less than whole that is worse than not coming back at all that eats away at our consciousness. And yet in the end there is here displayed the triumph of the human will and a story about how a man might find redemption in the most deplorable of circumstances.

There is one problem with the DVD - the case says it's 1 hour and 25 minutes long. I have been watching for 2 hours and there's no end in sight. I'll save the end of it for another day, but beware if you think it's a quick watch.

Well, my preconceptions were wrong.

First of all, for those who think that Tom Cruise is just another pretty boy (which was basically my opinion), this movie sets that mistaken notion to rest. He is nothing short of brilliant in a role that is enormously demanding--physically, mentally, artistically, and emotionally. I don't see how anybody could play that role and still be the same person. Someday in his memoirs, Tom Cruise is going to talk about being Ron Kovic as directed by Oliver Stone.

And second, Stone's treatment of the sex life of Viet Vets in wheelchairs is absolutely without sentimentality or silver lining. There are no rose petals and no soft pedaling. There was no Jane Fonda, as in Coming Home, to play an angel of love. Instead the high school girl friend understandably went her own way, and love became something you bought if you could afford it.

And third, Stone's depiction of America--and this movie really is about America, from the 1950s to the 1970s--from the pseudo-innocence of childhood war games and 4th of July parades down Main street USA to having your guts spilled in a foreign land and your brothers-in-arms being sent home in body bags--was as indelible as black ink on white parchment. He takes us from proud moms and patriotic homilies to the shameful neglect in our Veteran's hospitals to the bloody clashes between anti-war demonstrators and the police outside convention halls where reveling conventioneers wave flags and mouth phony slogans.

I have seen most of Stone's work and as far as fidelity to authentic detail and sustained concentration, this is his best. There are a thousand details that Stone got exactly right, from Dalton Trumbo's paperback novel of a paraplegic from WW I, Johnny Got His Gun, that sat on a tray near Kovic's hospital bed, to the black medic telling him that there was a more important war going on at the same time as the Vietnam war, namely the civil rights movement, to a mother throwing her son out of the house when he no longer fulfilled her trophy case vision of what her son ought to be, to Willem DaFoe's remark about what you have to do sexually when nothing in the middle moves.

Also striking were some of the scenes. In particular, the confession scene at the home of the boy Kovic accidentally shot; the Mexican brothel scene of sex/love desperation, the drunken scene at the pool hall bar and the pretty girl's face he touches, and then the drunken, hate-filled rage against his mother, and of course the savage hospital scenes--these and some others were deeply moving and likely to haunt me for many years to come.

Of course, as usual, Oliver Stone's political message weighed heavily upon his artistic purpose. Straight-laced conservatives will find his portrait of America one-sided and offensive and something they'd rather forget. But I imagine that the guys who fought in Vietnam and managed to get back somehow and see this movie, will find it redemptive. Certainly to watch Ron Kovic, just an ordinary Joe who believed in his country and the sentiments of John Wayne movies and comic book heroics, go from a depressed, enraged, drug-addled waste of a human being to an enlightened, focused, articulate, and ultimately triumphant spokesman for the anti-war movement, for veterans, and the disabled was wonderful to see. As Stone reminds us, Kovic really did become the hero that his misguided mother dreamed he would be.

No other Vietnam war movie haunts me like this one. There is something about coming back less than whole that is worse than not coming back at all that eats away at our consciousness. And yet in the end there is here displayed the triumph of the human will and a story about how a man might find redemption in the most deplorable of circumstances.

There is one problem with the DVD - the case says it's 1 hour and 25 minutes long. I have been watching for 2 hours and there's no end in sight. I'll save the end of it for another day, but beware if you think it's a quick watch.

Well, my preconceptions were wrong.

First of all, for those who think that Tom Cruise is just another pretty boy (which was basically my opinion), this movie sets that mistaken notion to rest. He is nothing short of brilliant in a role that is enormously demanding--physically, mentally, artistically, and emotionally. I don't see how anybody could play that role and still be the same person. Someday in his memoirs, Tom Cruise is going to talk about being Ron Kovic as directed by Oliver Stone.

And second, Stone's treatment of the sex life of Viet Vets in wheelchairs is absolutely without sentimentality or silver lining. There are no rose petals and no soft pedaling. There was no Jane Fonda, as in Coming Home, to play an angel of love. Instead the high school girl friend understandably went her own way, and love became something you bought if you could afford it.

And third, Stone's depiction of America--and this movie really is about America, from the 1950s to the 1970s--from the pseudo-innocence of childhood war games and 4th of July parades down Main street USA to having your guts spilled in a foreign land and your brothers-in-arms being sent home in body bags--was as indelible as black ink on white parchment. He takes us from proud moms and patriotic homilies to the shameful neglect in our Veteran's hospitals to the bloody clashes between anti-war demonstrators and the police outside convention halls where reveling conventioneers wave flags and mouth phony slogans.

I have seen most of Stone's work and as far as fidelity to authentic detail and sustained concentration, this is his best. There are a thousand details that Stone got exactly right, from Dalton Trumbo's paperback novel of a paraplegic from WW I, Johnny Got His Gun, that sat on a tray near Kovic's hospital bed, to the black medic telling him that there was a more important war going on at the same time as the Vietnam war, namely the civil rights movement, to a mother throwing her son out of the house when he no longer fulfilled her trophy case vision of what her son ought to be, to Willem DaFoe's remark about what you have to do sexually when nothing in the middle moves.

Also striking were some of the scenes. In particular, the confession scene at the home of the boy Kovic accidentally shot; the Mexican brothel scene of sex/love desperation, the drunken scene at the pool hall bar and the pretty girl's face he touches, and then the drunken, hate-filled rage against his mother, and of course the savage hospital scenes--these and some others were deeply moving and likely to haunt me for many years to come.

Of course, as usual, Oliver Stone's political message weighed heavily upon his artistic purpose. Straight-laced conservatives will find his portrait of America one-sided and offensive and something they'd rather forget. But I imagine that the guys who fought in Vietnam and managed to get back somehow and see this movie, will find it redemptive. Certainly to watch Ron Kovic, just an ordinary Joe who believed in his country and the sentiments of John Wayne movies and comic book heroics, go from a depressed, enraged, drug-addled waste of a human being to an enlightened, focused, articulate, and ultimately triumphant spokesman for the anti-war movement, for veterans, and the disabled was wonderful to see. As Stone reminds us, Kovic really did become the hero that his misguided mother dreamed he would be.

No other Vietnam war movie haunts me like this one. There is something about coming back less than whole that is worse than not coming back at all that eats away at our consciousness. And yet in the end there is here displayed the triumph of the human will and a story about how a man might find redemption in the most deplorable of circumstances.