PopSmart

I saw Kit Kittredge: An American Girl at 10 a.m. the day it opened, so I got to check out a bunch of trailers for upcoming kid-oriented films. The shocking thing was seeing the previews for two computer-animated talking-animal comedies, Space Chimps and Fly Me to the Moon. They’re the same movie!

OK, they have cosmetic differences. Space Chimps, as the title suggests, depicts a trio of chimpanzees on an outer space rescue mission (complete with aliens) and opens July 18. Opening August 8, Fly Me to the Moon depicts three young houseflies who secretly stow away on the Apollo 11 mission and thus share in the first moon landing experience with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. I shudder to think of the puns based on his name.

Now, I can get how the arm’s race-style competition between Hollywood studios yields to suspiciously similar movies like Antz and A Bug’s Life, or Deep Impact and Armageddon, or Dante’s Peak and Volcano (I could go on and on), but does either of these look like a good enough idea to be made — let alone twice? I dare you to watch them:

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In anticipation of next week’s big-screen release of the Batman epic film The Dark Knight, July 8 saw the direct-to-DVD issue of Batman: Gotham Knight (reviewed here), a moody, inventive anthology film with Japanese anime filmmakers presenting their interpretations of the Caped Crusader. The same day also saw the release of another DC Comics video adaptation with a distinct anime flavor: Teen Titans: The Complete Fifth Season.

Airing on Atlanta’s Cartoon Network from 2003-2006, “Teen Titans” featured a theme song by perky Japanese twosome Puffy Ami Yumi and a peculiar but effective blend of serious, arcing episodes and zany comic relief. Funny scenes would draw on manga-style caricature: throbbing veins would appear on angry characters’ heads, hearts would bubble up for lovesick ones, and even odder exaggerations would appear that gave the show’s humor a fresh, funny attitude. The show’s fifth and final season is my favorite, as it pits the Teen Titans against an iconic supervillian team called The Brotherhood of Evil; pop references come even more quickly (including nods to Doctor Who’s Daleks and The Incredibles). Plus, it reinforces my theory that the show’s creators patterned the five Titans after the main characters of John Hughes’ beloved 1980s film, The Breakfast Club.

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Family history collides with demographic changes in HALLELUJAH STREET BLUES, Atlanta playwright Valetta Anderson’s comedy/drama about, in part, the gentrification of a Decatur neighborhood. Presented in conjunction with the National Black Arts Festival and opening Fri., JULY 11, the multigenerational family story stars “The Young and the Restless’” Veronica Redd (right) and “Hill Street Blues’” Taurean Blacque. Thomas Jones II, who directed the adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye for Horizon last summer, also directs Hallelujah Street Blues. Through Aug. 24. $15-$30. Wed.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 8:30 p.m.; Sun., 5 p.m. Horizon Theatre, 1083 Austin Ave. 404-584-7450. www.horizontheatre.com.

(Photo courtesy Horizon Theatre)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens this weekend, and the film’s dark visual splendors affirm that director Guillermo del Toro is one of the major visionary filmmakers of our time — even though some of its thematic and emotional content doesn’t have the same punch as the first Hellboy. Del Toro is such an outlandishly stylish film fantasist that sometimes it’s easy to overlook the contribution of Mike Mignola, the comic book artist/writer who created the Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics and works closely on the films. Mignola shares a writing credit with del Toro for Golden Army.

In the comics, Mignola’s shadowy, Gothic-drenched artwork tends to be more stark and his dialogue more spare than their equivalent images in the Hellboy movies. There are two animated Hellboy films, but perhaps the best cartoon showcase for the tone and look of Mignola’s work is “The Amazing Screw-On Head.” This exceedingly odd 20-minute animated horror spoof features the voice of Paul Giamatti as a low-tech mechanical secret agent circa the Civil War called “The Screw-On Head.” (Yes, other characters, like Abraham Lincoln, address him as “Screw-On Head.”) David Hyde Pierce voices his arch-villain, the foppish ghoul Emperor Zombie. From Bryan Fuller, creator of “Pushing Daisies,” the 2006 pilot film looks exactly like what you’d get if the creators of Adult Swim made a Halloween-themed version of “Wild Wild West.” The introductory scheme perfectly captures Mignola’s penchant for occult action scenes and demented whimsy:

Speaking of Hellboy II, have you seen the viral videos of James Lipton interviewing Hellboy, as well as Hellboy’s public service announcement? Funny.

Not long after its witty Youtube trailer for Song of the Living Dead, Dad’s Garage Theatre presents a teaser trailer for the world premiere of its Top Shelf show, FWD. Mike Katinsky directs the madness-laced office satire written by Christian Danley and Randy Havens, which features two of my favorite performers in the Dad’s circle, Matthew Myers and Alison Hastings. (Incidentally, I interviewed Havens for a story that will run next week.) If FWD lives up to the standard of other Top Shelf premieres such as Drove, it should be a must see. Plus, the new Top Shelf comedies tend to be short!

The teaser emulates old-fashioned corporate training films and is quite clever. The Dad’s people seem to have a flair with the viral video form:

I probably won’t be able to see Eddie Murphy’s Meet Dave this week, but the premise looks promising. Originally titled Starship Dave, the film presents Murphy in two roles. Dave, a seemingly ordinary man walking the streets of New York City, is in fact a starship built to exactly resemble a human being. Murphy also plays the ship’s tiny captain, commanding a bridge of similarly diminutive aliens who control Dave’s actions. Not surprisingly, “Dave” comes across as wildly eccentric, like Steve Martin’s All of Me meets the hero of a wacky alien comedy such as “Mork & Mindy.”

If the premise of a human being being “operated” from the inside by a band of controllers looks familiar, Woody Allen’s already done it in his 1972 anthology comedy Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask). In the last and best chapter, “What happens during ejaculation?” Allen depicts the internal “crew” of an unseen man on a date that goes, uh extremely well. Tony Randall and Burt Reynolds lead the crew that controls the brain, blue collar-type workers in the stomach labor to digest the incoming meal (”Italian food? Jesus CHRIST!”), etc. Allen plays one of numerous sperm, preparing to be deployed like parachutists: “What if he’s masturbating? We could end up on the ceiling!” You can watch it in its entirety on Youtube:

Meet Dave opens this Friday, July 11.

The Dragon King by Tanglewood Marionnettes kicks off this year’s SummerFest at The Center for Puppetry Arts. SummerFest usually presents shows from visiting puppetry troupes from around the nation, and The Dragon King may be the best all-around family show — by an out-of-town-troupe — that I’ve seen at the Center.

Based in Ware, Mass., Tanglewood Marionnettes adapted The Dragon King based on a Chinese folktale, in which a drought has turned the land brown and lifeless. (It could be torn from today’s headlines.) For reasons unknown, the supernatural Dragon King has neglected his duties of bringing rain to countryside, so a grandmother goes on a quest to find the Dragon King in his undersea kingdom.

Not surprisingly, the show features many influences from Chinese culture, including a lovely, scrolling backdrop that imitates Chinese illustration style, as well as a lively parade dragon that snakes around the audience near the end. The script draws cleverly from other storytelling traditions as well, from Aesop’s fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare” to the movie Finding Nemo (in thankfully subtle ways). The marionettes, manipulated by Peter Schaefer and Jenn Tebo, are absolutely gorgeous, particularly such animals as the hare, a sea turtle and a giant squid at least six feet tall. In one of the show’s most charming surprises, a pair of huge goldfish (like koi pond escapees) turn out to be “flip-over puppets,” and when their oversized tails turn inside out, they turn into completely different characters.

Tanglewood’s dialogue and music are prerecorded, which can sometimes rob a puppetry performance of a certain spontaneity, but Tanglewood makes up for that by having puppeteer Peter Schaefer chat up the audience before and after the performance. Plus, Schaefer and Tebo perform in full view of the audience for most of the show, which adds to the personal touch.

The Dragon King plays through July 13 at the Center for Puppetry Arts. The remaining shows on the SummerFest bill are The Bremen Town Musicians by Crabgrass Puppet Theatre of Halifax, Vt. (July 15-27), and Sleeping Beauty, a one-puppeteer performance by Paul Messner Puppets of Kansas City, Mo. (July 29-Aug. 10).

In honor of our nation’s birthday, I offer possibly the most patriotic song ever written. Chances are you’ve heard this anthem-to-end-all-anthems from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but I’ll bet you’ve never heard the whole thing.

This year’s installment of The Animation Show (reviewed here), opening July 4 at the Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, features a charming little cartoon called “Western Spaghetti,” the latest cartoon confection from the animator PES (Adam Pesapane). “Western Spaghetti” is another of the animator’s stop-motion, doodle-like shorts that involves candy or other foodstuffs substituting for familiar objects: in the 11-second “The Fireplace,” PES renders a Yule log in candy corn and pretzels. A previous Animation Show featured “Game Over,” PES’ tribute to old-school arcade video games, with familiar sound effects:

PES’s fun food-related shorts are completely work safe and kid-friendly — which is more than you can say for his hilarious “Roof Sex,” which features furniture instead of food, as well as a killer punchline.

The new film Hancock (reviewed here) takes two steps forward and at least one step back in advancing the cause of black superheroes, who are solely underrepresented in pop culture. On the plus side, Hancock is a lavish summer movie scheduled for the prime July 4 weekend spot, starring arguably the world’s most popular African-American screen actor. In the debit column, the title character is a surly, accident-prone boozer who sets such a bad example, he makes Charles “I’m not a role model” Barkley look like, I dunno, President David Palmer from “24.”

Black superheroes have a spotty history in comics, cartoons and movies. Before the mid-1960s, you’d be hard-pressed to find any African-American comic book superheroes, and the ones who subsequently emerged were frequently treated as tokens with either utterly bland or highly stereotypical characterization. With so many real-world heroes breaking the color bar in arts, sports, politics and civil rights over the past generations, it’s not a surprise that the likes of, say, Black Vulcan from “Super Friends” never made much of an impact. For simplicity’s sake I’ll focus here (mostly) on the black superheroes who have crossed over to other media, with varying degrees of success.

Blade

By default, the character to make the most successful leap from comic books to other media is Blade, played by Wesley Snipes. The super-powered vampire hunter first appeared in Tomb of Dracula in 1973, remained on the margins of Marvel Comics but in 1998-2004 received the big-screen treatment in three films (not to mention a short-lived TV series with Kirk “Sticky” Jones). The success of the Blade films blazed the trail for higher-profile Marvel Comics adaptations like X-Men and Spider-man. Despite his pointy silver weapons and vampire-type powers, Blade is arguably more of an R-rated horror/action hero than an iconic superhero in his own right. Still, director Guillermo Del Toro made Blade II into one of the most surprisingly entertaining guilty-pleasure hero films. The clip above features Ron ‘Hellboy’ Perlman as a racist vampire and includes some of Snipes’ liveliest macho posturing.

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