Batman: The Animated Series- Fire from Olympus

 "Now, at last, mighty Zeus is home..."

Maxie Zeus, it's fair to say, never really was a top tier Batman villain, and so I'd not be surprised if this turns out to be his only appearance in the Animated Series. Still, it's nice to see a villain of his stature make an appearance. Might there perhaps be some hope for Crazy Quilt?

This is nicely done, though. The backstory changed so that Maxie becomes a businessman turning to criminal dealings, and whose exposure to the legal consequences causes him to crack. There is depth in his "muse" Clio being heartbroken by what has happened to the man she once loved, and it's a nice touch that we get a brief moment of the real Maxie before he, er, orders her to be tied to the front of this episode's MacGuffin of a massive, massive gun before firing it.

The forties vibes are even stronger than usual here, with everyone suitably attired and the police having, yes, an airship. And, yet again, the plot moves forwards with admirable efficiency so as to fit within the twenty minute timeslot, with nicely efficient exposition between Batman and Jim Gordon who, well, seems awfully happy to disclose what must surely be secret information with his vigilante friend.

Overall. good stuff, and good use of a quirky but forgettable villain. Even if the writer doesn't quite get the distinction between the subjective and objective in the singular second person pronoun in early modern English- "... where thee belongs", indeed! 

Monsters Inc (2001)

"Kids these days... They just don't get scared like they used to!"

I'm somewhat winging it with this one; I wasn't going to blog this film and so I didn't make any notes. But here I am, a week later, deciding to blog it after all. I haven't done that since Drop Dead Fred. So here's hoping for some semblance of structure.

This film is, let us lay it out at the start, amazing. The animation, the voice acting and the witty script raise this up to something special, but best of all is the concept; a city of great looking monsters who get all their powers from the screams of frightened children. Sully is the most celebrated of the scarers, who enter inter dimensional doors (a fantastic image) to scare kids. But all this comes crashing down once a little baby girl and a dastardly plot enter proceedings.

One has to raise an eyebrow, I suppose, at a fairly contemporary looking society with an energy crisis which is able to use doors as interdimensional portals, but the whole concept is so cool that I simply don't care. The dynamic between Sully and Mike is fantastic, as it has to be for the film to work, and Boo is so very, very cute.

There's not much more to say; I'm not going to dig too deep for subtext although there are probably things that could be said about corporate greed. Just go and watchful. It's great.