Directed by Fede Alvarez this awesome short came out a few years ago from South America. This goes to show that you can make a nice looking sci-fi/action short for almost nothing. It also gained him enough attention that he was offered to helm the remake of the cult classic The Evil Dead which is being released in 2013.
The Justice League is a group of superheroes with unspeakable power. What would happen if they started to use that power against humanity? That’s the exact question Batman asked himself. He prepares a contingency plan that can stop every member of the Justice League in case any or all members go rogue. The Legion of Doom (Bane, Star Sapphire, Metallo, Ma’alefa’ak, Mirror Master and Cheetah) led by Vandal Savage get a hold of those plans and one by one slowly start taking down each member of the Justice League. Once Batman realizes what’s happening, its up to him to help each hero and stop the Legion of Doom from destroying half of Earths’ population with a solar flare from the sun created by Savage himself.
DC has a great thing going with their animated feature division. Marvel excels at live action films but DC takes the cake in this department (but lets not forget about the Chris Nolan Batman franchise though). This flick isn’t one of the best I’ve seen from them but its still ten times better than any animated film Marvel has put out. The biggest plus for me is when they are able to get the voice actors from the animated TV series back for these movies. They MAKE the movie. They give life to these characters and do an excellent job at it. I couldn’t think of anyone else that could do Batman and Superman besides Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly. I can’t forget to give credit to Michael Rosenbaum and Nathan Fillion for voicing Flash and Green Lantern respectively. They both give a certain amount of “smartassery” (yes, I just made that up.) to each character and it suits them well. My only complaint about this feature is it seemed like there was not enough time and too many characters to properly tell the story in detail. Some parts felt a bit rushed but understandably so. With that being said, I would still recommend this movie and any other future DC movie to anyone else. Job well done DC!
Justice League: Doom is available February 28, 2012 on Bluray and DVD
This short done by Max Landis (son of Director John Landis and screenwriter of Chronicle) takes a hilarious look at the DC comic event of the 90’s “The Death and Return of Superman” and basically gives you a play-by-play of the entire thing. Starring Elden Henson, Mandy Moore, Elijah Wood, Morgan Krantz, Seth Green and others, it takes parodies to a whole other level.
Directed and Starring Joshua Leonard (Blair Witch Project), The Lie shows us the life of Lonnie (Leonard) and how he feels stuck in a rut. He’s a married man with a six month old little girl and realizes his life isn’t the way he quite pictured it. On whim he decides to call into work and tell his boss he can’t make it into work because his daughter is sick. He then goes out and plays “hooky” for the day and enjoys himself. He enjoys himself so much that he decides to do it again the next day but scrambles for an excuse while on the phone and tells his boss his 6 month old daughter died the previous night. He starts to gain sympathy from everyone around him because of this lie and somewhat enjoys the benefits a tad. What comes next is a journey of regret and self discovery as a husband and father.
It has an interesting premise and that’s what attracted me to this flick. The acting is fair and it has a well rounded cast. The filmmakers did a good job at excluding the lie from any synopsis or description because I don’t think I would’ve sat through it if I would’ve known. It was kind of off-putting to know that even after Lonnie told the lie he kind of just went along with it. I’m not one to be appalled by subject matter in a film or anything of that nature. I think that if it serves a purpose to help the story along then fine but I think this was done just to get the cheap “shock” factor in. It worked to a certain degree but not in the way they probably wanted or expected. Although the underlining message was understandable, the rest of the film felt like a long complaint letter about the characters’ life thus far. I would say, if you’re curious then go right ahead and give it a view but other than that you should wait till it hits IFC at 2am and DVR it.
