It’s the latest of DC Universe’s 13 animated features for the PG-13 crowd, following the recent “Batman: Year One,” more-than-decent “Green Lantern: Emerald Knights” and dull “All-Star Superman.” A chalice-carrying lunatic appropriately named Vandal Savage (voiced by Phil Morris) offers members of the Legion of Doom (including Cheetah, Mirror Master and — timely! — Bane) […]
action
Posted inArts & Culture
War of the Arrows
So consider it high praise that “War of the Arrows” offers an experience decidedly different. While far from the first arrow-based film, this South Korean effort is arguably the classiest and most exciting in memory. Set in the early 17th century, “War” deals with the Manchu empire at large, and the bonds of a family […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Yakuza Weapon
For the uninformed, the yakuza is the Japanese equivalent of our mafia — an underworld crime syndicate where loyalty is value No. 1. Break that, and there’s hell to pay! In this Sushi Typhoon offering from co-directors Tak Sakaguchi (“Mutant Girls Squad”) and Yûdai Yamaguchi (the similarly wacky but overlong “Battlefield Baseball”), Sakaguchi also stars as […]
Posted inArts & Culture
King of Triads
When a crime lord is execution in cold blood — is there any other kind? — his will leaves his billion-dollar estate to his two grown children, Audrey (Bernice Liu, “The King of Fighters“) and Jason (Lok Yi Lai, making the jump from HK TV). This decision does not sit well with the criminal peers […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Nude Nuns with Big Guns
Make that a sacrilegious twist. And as with the also new-to-DVD “Dead Hooker in a Trunk,” you need not proceed beyond reading the title. On a smack trip after being beaten up within an inch of her life, nun Sister Sarah (Asun Ortega) awakens with new purpose: doing the Lord’s work. She already does, but […]
Posted inArts & Culture
First Squad: The Moment of Truth
The alt-history animation centers on Division Six, a do-gooder group of mentally linked youths who use the gifts of astrology, clairvoyance and hypnosis against legendary sorcerer/black-arts practitioner Baron von Wolff and his wizard warriors. After having bloodily slaughtered a Russian village to smithereens, the Baron — aka the Angel of Death — is pursued by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dead Hooker in a Trunk
Substitute “bomb” with “whore corpse,” and you have the Canadian crime spree known as “Dead Hooker in a Trunk.” The title is the best thing about it, raising all sorts of hope it cannot satisfy. Written and directed by sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska — who star as Geek and Badass, respectively — the low-budget […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lethal Ladies 2 Collection
Nope, that nugget of wisdom isn’t from Starz’s hit “Spartacus,” but from producer Roger Corman’s 1974 hit “The Arena,” one of three female-centric actioners that comprises Shout! Factory’s double-D, double-disc “Lethal Ladies 2 Collection.” Naturally, it’s the latest entry in the as-addictive-as-crack “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” line. Unimaginatively remade with Playboy Playmates Karen McDougal and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In the Land of Blood and Honey
Set in the mid-1990s against the backdrop of genocide in Bosnia- Herzegovina, it details random killing, rapes, the tossing of a baby from a balcony and the use of women as literal human shields. This is not for the faint of heart. Showing Friday through Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the film […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Redline
While director Takeshi Koike’s (“The Animatrix,” TV’s “Iron Man”) animated extravaganza depicts a world where aliens and animals walk and talk and dine on Hexagonal Worm Spaghetti Soup, our hero is an old-school human named JP, who’s cast in 1950s Elvis Presley mode, complete with Johnny Bravo pompadour. With a Patrick Warburton-esque delivery in the […]