From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Jul 16 14:07:51 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:707 rec.arts.animation:5015 rec.arts.sf.reviews:103 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.animation,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: good@pixar.com (Craig Good) Subject: REVIEW: COOL WORLD Reply-To: good@pixar.com (Craig Good) Organization: Pixar Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1992 15:37:34 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: <1992Jul14.153734.23167@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01430 Keywords: author=Good Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 49 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] COOL WORLD A film review by Craig Good Copyright 1992 Craig Good COOL WORLD is the latest effort from Ralph Bakshi, the man who directed such seminal works as FRITZ THE CAT, WIZARDS, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. One thing you can say for Ralph is that his directorial style reflects his own personality. Trying to hold a conversation with Bakshi has been likened to listening to someone spin the tuning dial on a radio. This movie has all the continuity of a fever dream. It's a confused mish-mash of random, poorly-animated mayhem and wholesale rotoscope over occasionally stunning background paintings. The primary appeal this film would seem to have is to the kind of desperate, hormone-ravaged teens who are sorry that Jessica Rabbit never appeared nude in PLAYBOY. While the over-rendered Holli Would never doffs her skimpies, Ralph compensates by peppering the film with plenty of scatological references. "Subtle" is not in this man's vocabulary. Just because the movie is dreadful doesn't mean there aren't a few good moments. Some of the animation, especially at the end of the film, is quite good -- maybe about two minutes total -- and the large background paintings in Cool World are way cool. A pleasant surprise was that Kim Basinger actually makes a very professional voice actress (well, given the limitations of the character). The trouble is that none of the actors are given anything to work with. There is nothing to explain what any of them are doing. There are no consistent rules governing the interaction between the 'Noids of the real world and the Doodles of the "cool world." Isolated bits of dialogue float in and out of focus while completely random acts of cartoon violence fill the foreground. COOL WORLD is one non-sequitur after another. The endless references to classic animated films, especially FANTASIA, only succeed in making you wonder why you paid real money to sit in the theatre. If you insist on seeing this movie, you probably will laugh several times. Some of those times may even be when Ralph wanted you to (there is a hilarious scene with a cute bunny shooting craps). But, if any of COOL WORLD survives in your memory, it'll likely leave a taste in your mouth to remind you of the last time you ate a whole jumbo bag of pork rinds. --Craig good@pixar.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Jul 16 14:07:50 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:708 rec.arts.animation:5018 rec.arts.sf.reviews:104 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!nobeltech!admin.kth.se!kth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!yale!gumby!wupost!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: rauser@sfu.ca (Richard John Rauser) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.animation,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: COOL WORLD Summary: r.a.m.r. #01431 Keywords: author=Rauser Message-ID: <1992Jul14.154157.23968@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Date: 14 Jul 92 15:41:57 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: rauser@sfu.ca (Richard John Rauser) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada Lines: 79 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] COOL WORLD A film review by Rick J. Rauser Copyright 1992 WNI and Rick J. Rauser Yup, I'm back in the reviewing game. To all of you on rec.arts.movies who (for some reason known only to God himself) got upset that I changed my opinion about BATMAN RETURNS, go to heck. I'm too nice to say "hell". :-) I saw COOL WORLD after reading David Brin's article in which he urges people to avoid this film because, like all of Bakshi's other films (in Brin's opinion) it is a work of pure, unmitigated evil. Of course, Brin hadn't even seen COOL WORLD at the time but that was beside the point... (sigh). Let me say two things about COOL WORLD right off the bat: (1) I don't think it will do very well at the box office, and (2) I loved it. Why do I think it will (more than likely) be a financial flop? To put it simply, COOL WORLD has very limited appeal. It is a fast-paced flick with little attention to plot and characterization that operates on an entirely surreal level. It is a dream, a fantasy, a look inside the psyche. There are plot holes and overall the movie doesn't make a lot of sense. People who go to COOL WORLD expecting a fun cartoon for the kiddies will probably walk out the instant they see Holli swinging her hips, and people who go to this film expecting a consistent, well-thought out plot will be screaming and whining five minutes after the first plot hole. So why did I love it? Simple... I knew what to expect. Call it a hunch, but I was expecting a fast-paced fantasy that appealed more to the emotions than the intellect and I got what I expected. COOL WORLD is energy. COOL WORLD is humour. COOL WORLD is action. COOL WORLD is fantasy. Complaining that there are some plot holes is like complaining that a porno has too much sex. Plot holes aren't relevant in COOL WORLD because the film isn't about plot. Oh sure, there *is* some semblance of a plot and the movie does roll along towards its fulfillment, but Bakshi is more interested in appealing to our senses, our emotions, and with subverting our traditional ideas about heroism, stereotyping, and what constitutes reality. The exercise isn't intellectual so much as it is allegorical and metaphysical. You have to let yourself go to enjoy COOL WORLD. You can't sit there and try to make sense of the universe. COOL WORLD is a film about the senses, not sense. That's another big reason I think this film will have limited appeal. (Heck, I *know* it has limited appeal :-). Most movie goers are too wrapped up in trying to poke holes in the plot and trying to understand the world presented to them in logical terms to be able to enjoy a metaphysical and emotional experience like COOL WORLD. Someone pointed out to me that a character at the film's end is too corny and silly to be taken seriously. I replied by saying, "That was the entire *point* behind that character!" This person missed the emotion and the allegory because he was too busy trying to fit the film into logical pigeon holes. He couldn't see the forest for the trees. So be warned: COOL WORLD is one wild ride. The music is fantastic, the film is non-stop energy, and the humour is very clever and very consistent. Bakshi is poking fun at many things on many levels and if you watch the film with a careful eye you'll see what it's trying to say. But COOL WORLD is not a film for people who love Sherlock Holmes style plot, and it's not a film for the people on rec.arts.sf.movies who spent endless hours discussing TERMINATOR 2 plot holes. COOL WORLD is a film for people who want to get blown out of their seats for two hours and then figure out after what it all meant. It does mean something... quite a lot, really. COOL WORLD rocks. But you have to let it rock, and not everyone can do that. On a scale of one to ten, I give COOL WORLD 9/10. It's that good. But you have to be able to appreciate it, and COOL WORLD appeals to limited tastes. -- Richard J. Rauser rauser@sfu.ca WNI From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Jul 17 13:47:33 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:709 rec.arts.animation:5035 rec.arts.sf.reviews:105 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.animation,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: v-paulk@microsoft.com (Paul Kearns) Subject: REVIEW: COOL WORLD Reply-To: v-paulk@microsoft.com (Paul Kearns) Organization: Microsoft Corp. Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1992 19:49:14 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: <1992Jul16.194914.16540@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01432 Keywords: author=Kearns Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 97 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] COOL WORLD A film review by Paul Kearns Copyright 1992 Paul Kearns Now, I'm new at this review stuff, so don't believe anything I say.... COOL WORLD; Paramount Pictures, 1992; Produced by Frank Mancuso, Jr. and directed by Ralph Bashki. Stars Kim Basinger, Brad Pitt, and Gabriel Byrne, plus a host of animated characters. Rated PG-13 for adult humor and innuendo. COOL WORLD is the story about two parallel realities, the one we are used to (the "Real World") whose inhabitants are referred to as "noids," and one filled with animated characters, or "doodles" ("Cool World"). Actually, most of the scenes are in Cool World, since this is the focus of the film. The main plot of COOL WORLD involves a character named Holli Would ("if she could"), and her attempts to cross over to the "Real World." Holli, who is most easily described as an animated Marilyn Monroe (at one point, Holli is imitating Ms. Monroe in LET'S MAKE LOVE), will stop at nothing in her efforts. Jack Deebs (played by Gabriel Byrne), imprisoned for 10 years, has visions of Cool World which he then draws -- making him popular in comic book stores. However, as Detective Frank Harris (played by Brad Pitt) states, "[Cool World] exists with or without you [Deebs]." Holli Would (the "noid" version played by Kim Basinger) tries to seduce Deebs into (and out of) Cool World by breaking the "oldest" and apparently *only* law, "noids don't have sex with doodles." Det. Harris' job is to make sure no one breaks this law, including Holli, Deebs, and himself. COOL WORLD is busy, madcap, and often loud; it's very much like being at a party or dance club. At any given time, the main scene takes place behind two or more doodles chasing each other, or just running past. Especially in scenes with Det. Harris, things move between "noid" and "doodle" (Harris stepping out of a car which is then seen two-dimensional, etc). Between scene changes there's often a short cartoon having nothing to do with the story line; falling safes and falling cows (yup) are everyday occurrences in Cool World. If these sort of distractions bother you, you might not like COOL WORLD. COOL WORLD is (partly) a cartoon, but it is certainly not aimed at children. While there is nothing explicit, Holli Would (both as a doodle and a noid) is extraordinarily seductive. There are scenes which might be considered violent (though not graphic) and most of the humor is decidedly adult. It *is*, however, quite humorous in places. During the final scene, reminiscent of GHOSTBUSTERS, the "hero" character is especially funny. You should be able to get a good laugh out of it at least once during the movie. Brad Pitt (the "hunk" boyfriend in THELMA AND LOUISE) puts in an excellent performance. He plays the "tough cop upholding the law even if it goes against his wishes" well, and gives Frank Harris depth (not bad for a character in a two-dimensional world, ha ha). Kim Basinger plays Holli Would well. Kim portrays Holli's short sighted determination as if it were her own. Gabriel Byrne does a good job as Jack Deebs, although Deebs' role is mostly reactive and Byrne simply does what you would expect. Of course, it's hard to ignore the animated characters, too. You have to admit, they take stage direction better than any actor. It's these characters that make Cool World (the place) and COOL WORLD (the movie) what it is. The plot has a few holes, and the constant activity can sometimes make it discontinuous. And I'm sure I don't have to tell you that it's not the most realistic of movies. However, it's naturally unpredictable, entertaining, and always keeps you captivated (if only because you don't want to fall behind). COOL WORLD is not for everyone. A lot of what goes on may be above children, and many people may be confused by the busy-ness of the whole affair. Animation buffs should love it, and Holli (doodle AND noid) has an appeal that's hard to resist. Basically, if it looks interesting to you, you will probably like it. If it looks weird, you probably won't. I'd recommend this movie, provided you had half a mind to see it anyway. If you're unsure, check out a matinee. Personally, I've seen it twice so far and enjoyed it both times. Comments encouraged. Paul Kearns v-paulk From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Jul 17 13:49:07 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:710 rec.arts.animation:5036 rec.arts.sf.reviews:106 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.animation,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: nj@cs.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) Subject: REVIEW: COOL WORLD Reply-To: nj@cs.Berkeley.EDU (Narciso Jaramillo) Organization: University of California at Berekeley Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1992 19:49:57 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: <1992Jul16.194957.16629@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01433 Keywords: author=Jaramillo Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 69 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] COOL WORLD A film review by Narciso Jaramillo Copyright 1992 Narciso Jaramillo Ralph Bakshi (FRITZ THE CAT, BASKETBALL JONES, LORD OF THE RINGS) is generally known for two things: raw humor, and running out of money. This time he's hooked up with Frank Mancuso (FRIDAY THE 13TH), so the budget problems aren't there, but the humor is as raw as ever. The result is a guilty pleasure for animation fans, a flawed, possibly offensive, but nevertheless amusing movie. Holli Would (voice by Kim Basinger) is a shapely, seductive cartoon character (a "Doodle"). Although Doodles are sentient beings, they have no sense of touch--they can't physically feel anything. So Holli wants to become a real human (a "Noid"), and cross over from the world of the Doodles, the Cool World, into the real world. To this end she seduces comic-book artist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne), who has some sort of subconscious link to the Cool World and has drawn a successful series of comic books based on his visions. Unfortunately, her "reification," as it were, has consequences for The Universe As We Know It, and detective Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) has to clean up. The obvious genre comparison to make would be to WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, the huge Disney extravaganza that also combined live action with exquisitely rendered animations. COOL WORLD would certainly suffer by the comparison in many ways. Live action and animation are not combined as often, the animations are not nearly as impressive, the acting is weak, and the plot and continuity have gaping holes. Yet for all this, the vision of Doodle reality in COOL WORLD makes more sense than the sanitized Toontown of ROGER RABBIT. The Cool World is cartoon humor taken to a logical extreme: if cartoon characters can't really be killed or hurt, only embarrassed, and the entire purpose for their existence is to provide entertainment through physical humor, then why wouldn't they fill their entire life with completely random, utterly meaningless acts of violence? And so practically every scene is filled with distracting Doodles beating on each other in a myriad ways. Even Harris, a Noid, has lived in the Cool World so long that he shoves everyone around, Doodles and Noids alike. He doesn't interact like a normal human being anymore. The quality of the animation ranges from passable to excellent, with much rotoscopish attention paid to Holli's figure, as expected. Both the drawn backgrounds and live-action sets in the Cool World are beautifully dark and twisted. While there were enough good jokes (and some really funny gags) to keep me amused, the film's weakest point is the sheer immaturity of most of its humor--the humor of gonads and anvils. But for all its sexism, scatology, and gratuitous violence, we understand at the end that Bakshi knows exactly what he's doing--glorifying an animator's wet dream--and that he just doesn't care. COOL WORLD is not about comic-book characters, but about the artists who draw them and the people who read them. It is a glimpse into what they really fantasize about--and in the end, the artist gets exactly what he wants. Unfortunately, this self-indulgence, amusing as it may be for us comic fans, is precisely the film's downfall. Overall, I give the film a 4/10 for non-animation fans, and a 6/10 for animation fans. For the latter, I suggest waiting for it on video, so you can put it on pause or slo-mo and look at all the little foreground sight gags. -- Narciso Jaramillo nj@cs.Berkeley.EDU From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Jul 23 11:18:33 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:721 rec.arts.animation:5059 rec.arts.sf.reviews:107 Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!stanford.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu (Brian L. Johnson) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.animation,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: COOL WORLD Summary: r.a.m.r. #01441 Keywords: author=K.Johnson Message-ID: <1992Jul21.130031.2533@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Date: 21 Jul 92 13:00:31 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu (Brian L. Johnson) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: ? Lines: 73 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] COOL WORLD A film review by Ken Johnson Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson 100 min., PG-13, Animated/Comedy, 1992 Director: Ralph Bakshi Cast: Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne, Brad Pitt Brad Pitt is on a motorcycle with his mom when a drunk driver hits the bike. Pitt's mother is killed but Pitt survives. A cartoon scientist brings Pitt to Cool World, a world of cartoons (where cartoons are called Doodles and humans are called Noids). Several years later Doodle Holli Would (Kim Basinger) wants to get to the Real World (Earth). She brings cartoonist Gabriel Byrne to Cool World to get him to make love to her. If Byrne makes love to her, she will be able to go to the Real World. Pitt, now a Cool World police officer, tries to make sure that Byrne doesn't make love to Basinger. I found COOL WORLD to be an excellent cartoon and much better than any of the other films by Ralph Bakshi that I have seen (HEY GOOD LOOKIN', STREETFIGHT (originally titled COONSKIN), and I think LORD OF THE RINGS). I fully recommend this film to anybody who has a bizarre or twisted taste in films. This film is, like actor Brad Pitt described it in an interview, "Roger Rabbit on acid." I give COOL WORLD a five on a scale of zero to five. COOL WORLD is rated PG-13 for adult situations, adult humor, and explicit language. No, this is not a nice little animated film to bring your small children to. Because of some of the scenes, this film is also not one to go to if you are easily grossed out. I will not go into details but some of them are really funny (esp. in the cop chase). The animation in this film is in the traditional Bakshi style, crude but good, which is part of the reason that I tend to enjoy his films. His animation has a style of its own, which some people don't seem to like. Cool World is interestingly designed with its twisting buildings that go up above the clouds and twisting roads that go all over the place. I feel that Cool World was well designed as a cartoon world, especially with all the cartoons on the streets bringing sadistic harm to other cartoons. Maybe one cartoon is chasing another with an axe or a safe falls on a doodle, etc. This is an obvious jab at modern cartoons that are aired on the television. The way that the sets for the live action were designed were creative. The sets, in Cool World only, were made to look like a cartoon, with only two dimensions. When the camera went sideways on a set, it looked like a piece of paper, flat. I also enjoyed how the live characters interacted with the cartoons, yes I know it has been done many times before but I still enjoy it. Unfortunately I have to agree with Rick J. Rauser (r.a.m.r. #01431) that COOL WORLD will have a short stay in the theaters. I don't think that for the most part people are still enjoying films like this. Most people, I feel would rather go and see a film like BATMAN RETURNS. I recommend that if you are planning to see this film that you see it soon before it leaves the theaters because it really is worth seeing. I recommend seeing this film in a theater because there is always so much going on on the screen that some of the movie will be lost on a television screen. The actors do a great job with their roles. Kim Basinger does a great job as Holli Would, a sultry but egocentric person (Jessica Rabbit comes to mind). She just has a way of making the character come to life. Brad Pitt is good as the cop who really wants to be a Doodle. Gabriel Byrne also puts in a good performance as the cartoonist who becomes obsessed with making love to his creation, Holli Would. The wide number of Doodles are great, some nice, some evil; most with a comic twist to them that enlivens them. I also love the sentence on the top of the posters for the film "Holli Would if she could." Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Aug 4 14:00:30 1992 Xref: herkules.sssab.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:742 rec.arts.animation:5145 rec.arts.sf.reviews:119 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.animation,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: herkules.sssab.se!isy!liuida!sunic!mcsun!uunet!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!cbnewsj!ecl From: lon@edsi.plexus.COM (Lon Ponschock) Subject: REVIEW: COOL WORLD Reply-To: lon@edsi.plexus.COM (Lon Ponschock) Organization: Enterprise Data Systems Incorporated, Appleton WI Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1992 15:23:47 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: <1992Aug3.152347.9973@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01462 Keywords: author=Ponschock Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 104 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] COOL WORLD A film review by Lon Ponschock Copyright 1992 Lon Ponschock So I ask my companion why she fell asleep during COOL WORLD and she says, "Well, when the animator and the cartoon character of Holli Would first meet I was wondering when she was going to say 'Draw me a vagina.'" Yeah, I guess we all were. Ralph Bakshi is known for outrageous animation, and COOL WORLD with its PG-13 rating goes some way in extending the boundaries of what can be done with it. Animated characters such as Holli Would and Jessica Rabbit are a part of a collective fantasy based on a variety of sources. In the original novel by Gary K. Wolf, Jessica has just recently come up from pornographic comics: the crudely drawn kind such as the Naughty Nurse we find Lucas Haas reading under the sheets in RAMBLING ROSE. (Fans of this style should pick up on the original WHO CENSORED ROGER RABBIT? by Gary K. Wolf. The sense of the novel is completely different from the film in that the characters from toontown are real: The cartoon panels that you see in the newspaper are merely photographs or 'shoots' of real life in toontown. And when a talking bubble above their heads completes a phrase, it falls to earth in powder form so that people think all toons have dandruff. There's more, but go read the book.) The Japanese style of anime illustration is now readily available at your video store and is hugely popular here on the Usenet forum. COOL WORLD shows that American animators can explore just as much sexuality as their anime counterparts, but not much more either. COOL WORLD, unlike Toon Town, is a separate dimension. It is at once an invention of an illustrator who has recently been released from prison for killing his wife and an independent reality. The plot element of Jack Deebs killing his wife is curiously missing from any discussion of COOL WORLD that I have seen. Has the illustrator merely been the hand in detailing the characters of COOL WORLD or has he actually created the reality of it? COOL WORLD was up and running fifty years ago. But the apparent age of Gabriel Byrne who plays Jack Deebs, the illustrator is early 30's. Brad Pitt, another human, had been transferred through the use of an invention by one Dr. Whiskers at a moment of crisis in his life in 1945. He has been living in COOL WORLD ever since World War II. The COOL WORLD life forms are called doodles. Brad's character, Frank, has had a doodle girlfriend (apparently) for the last fifty years. But one of the rules of Cool World is that humanoids and doodles don't have sex. They can touch, feel and eat though. There are only two female characters of humanoid type. Were they drawn or did they have parents? What is their history? Animation allows the director to give full rein to his imagination and to have full control over the end result. In COOL WORLD there is never an idle moment. Cartoon cliches cavort all over the screen for the full 1 hour 45 mins. of the production. There is a lot in COOL WORLD. The kids that were in the matinee performance which we attended had a great time with the "primitives" hitting each other over the head with mallets ala the "primitive" style cartoons within cartoons: Itchy and Scratchy on THE SIMPSONS. What the kids are supposed to make of the more mature elements of the show I cannot answer. I don't even know what they "see" when humans are falling into the holes of a cartoon dimension. My companion tells me the story of how Bob Hoskins, while he was making ROGER RABBIT, found his son scowling at him when he was done at the studio for the day. Hoskins didn't know why the child was upset with him. Upon asking his son what the matter was, the child said, "You've been working with cartoons, and you never brought any of them home with you." Parents with younger children should be cautioned of the adult themes contained in the film. The best moment in the film for me was near the end during the climax of the picture in which Cool World and the real world intersect in Las Vegas (well, maybe it probably isn't that much of a stretch). Momentarily the humans at the various gaming tables get cartoon identities. This worked so well for me that after we left the theatre, I saw people as what they might look like as cartoons for a time. The picture is worth seeing for this sequence alone. My conclusion? In the area of animated sensuality *any* progress is *some* progress. So COOL WORLD did not bore me. How could it? Bakshi learned his lesson after WIZARDS: don't let the audience get bored at a cartoon show no matter what! I am contributing to this discussion because I think that there is more in COOL WORLD, more questions to ask than I have seen thus far on the Net or elsewhere. Maybe in video and with multiple viewings COOL WORLD will gain a cult following similar to DETOUR which is currently in remake. And while we're at it, how about giving Tim Burton lots of money to do a new version of THE FIVE THOUSAND FINGERS OF DR. T? lon From /home/matoh/tmp/sf-rev Fri Aug 22 16:26:02 1997 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jul 15 23:07:24 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!news.algonet.se!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: chuckd21@southeast.net (Chuck Dowling) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Contact (1997) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 6 Jul 1997 17:22:20 GMT Organization: Chuck's Movie Reviews Lines: 61 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <5pok8c$gs@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer36.u.washington.edu Content-Type: text NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r #08119 Keywords: author=dowling X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer36.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:7517 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1402 Contact (1997) NO STARS out of ***** - Cast: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, Angela Bassett, John Hurt, Rob Lowe, David Morse. Written by: James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg. Based on the novel by: Carl Sagan. Directed by: Robert Zemeckis. Running Time: 150 minutes. Hollywood, and specifically Robert Zemeckis, has given me a cure for insomnia which will never fail to work. "Contact" is just about the most painfully slow, dull, and lifeless film I have ever had the misfortune to sit through in a movie theater. Now, as I have been reading the advance reviews for "Contact" it seems that my opinion here is going to be in the minority. I've read statements like "It's one of the best films of the decade" and "Hollywood has finally come close to perfection". So I feel as though I'll need to over-justify many of my comments. First off, I am all for long movies, just as long as it's a good movie. If a film can maintain it's level of entertainment, it can go on forever as far as I'm concerned. So when I say that "Contact" is way too long, which it most certainly is, don't dismiss it as that I just hate long movies. Second, there doesn't have to be action or mayhem going on in a film for it to entertainment. I'm not a brainless drooler who's only entertained by stuff blowed up real good. Some of my favorite films are dramas, with very little going on in them. But they have a compelling story and characters who are interesting, unlike "Contact". "Contact" is all about listening for radio signals from outer space for signs of intelligent life. Sounds exciting doesn't it? The opening shot of the film, a very lengthy pullback through the universe, shows us how far our own radio and television signals are able to reach. But this goes on WAY too long, and sets the stage for the film's utter boredom. In the first 45 minutes, not much happens. You'd think that this would the time where characters are developed, but not so. There just really isn't anything going on. Astronomer Jodie Foster meets up with hunky Matthew McConaughey and the two immediately jump into bed together. This is character development? Then, a signal is received from outer space. Finally, something interesting. But amazingly, the scene is so dull, and done with a total lack of energy that who would care? Foster discovers this signal, and then for ten minutes babbles nothing but complex scientific jargon about it to her co-scientists which left me completely lost. What exactly is going on? Take some advanced science classes and maybe you too can understand. >From that point on, I was pretty much looking around the theater for something else to look at. So to go into the details about the remainder of the film would be impossible to do, since it never got more interesting than the theater ceiling. I do know that James Woods and David Morse are completely wasted in very small roles. Robert Zemeckis, please don't follow the path which you are on. Joel Schumacher awaits you at it's end. [PG] -- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.