

More than just a landmark in superhero animation, Max Fleischer's Superman shorts were no less than the foundation for so many shows that succeeded it. Playing in theaters in 1941-42, only a few years after the Man of Steel made his debut in Action Comics, these 17 exciting films were produced by Fleischer and made famous the phrase "This looks like a job for Superman!" At 10 minutes, each film had just enough time to run the opening credits, establish the threat, let Lois Lane make a headstrong rush into peril, and allow Clark Kent to change to his alter ego and save the day. The films show a remarkably dynamic and atmospheric storytelling style that enables them to hold up for modern viewers. At first the films followed a science fiction-fantasy theme, but not unexpectedly for that time soon focused on wartime concerns.

More than just a landmark in superhero animation, Max Fleischer's Superman shorts were no less than the foundation for so many shows that succeeded it. Playing in theaters in 1941-42, only a few years after the Man of Steel made his debut in Action Comics, these 17 exciting films were produced by Fleischer and made famous the phrase "This looks like a job for Superman!" At 10 minutes, each film had just enough time to run the opening credits, establish the threat, let Lois Lane make a headstrong rush into peril, and allow Clark Kent to change to his alter ego and save the day. The films show a remarkably dynamic and atmospheric storytelling style that enables them to hold up for modern viewers. At first the films followed a science fiction-fantasy theme, but not unexpectedly for that time soon focused on wartime concerns.
2009-04-07
7.4
This is a job for Superman!
5.3When KAOS develops a bomb that can dissolve all clothing, Maxwell Smart is brought in to foil the evil plot.
5.9The first manned expedition to Mars is invaded by an unknown life form, which stows away on the rescue ship.
6.3One of the greatest storytellers of our time, and arguably the greatest mythologist, Joseph Campbell spent most of his long, rich career explaining how ancient myths like the Hero’s Journey are relevant to modern life. In understanding the importance of myth as a vital, vibrant source of "mankind’s one great story," Campbell inspired others to embark on a quest for the meaning of myth in their own lives. This biographical portrait, filmed shortly before his death in 1987, follows Campbell’s personal quest—a pathless journey of questioning, discovery, and ultimately of delight and joy in a life to which he said, "Yes."
6.5After three Catholic Nuns are attacked by a Zombie Dog and turned into Zombies, they discover a group of articulate, educated, singing & dancing Zombies living in the idyllic enclave of Zomburbia. One of the Nuns refuses to accept her new-found Zombie-osity and sets off on a comic journey of self-discovery and mayhem...with, naturally, much singing and dancing along the way!
7.7A committed dancer struggles to maintain her sanity after winning the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake".
7.5Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
5.8After suffering a potentially career-ending brain trauma, Cameron Cade receives a lifeline when his hero, legendary eight-time Championship quarterback and cultural megastar Isaiah White, offers to train Cam at Isaiah's isolated compound that he shares with his celebrity influencer wife. But as Cam's training accelerates, Isaiah's charisma begins to curdle into something darker.
6.3Sarah and David are single strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding and soon, through a surprising twist of fate, find themselves on a funny, fantastical, sweeping adventure together where they get to re-live important moments from their respective pasts, illuminating how they got to where they are in the present... and possibly getting a chance to alter their futures.
7.0Servais Mont, a freelance photographer who works taking compromising photos, gets fascinated by Nadine Chevalier, a tormented low-budget movie actress married to an eccentric film photo collector.
5.3An American writer living in exile in London, Philip listens to women. His English mistress, who visits him regularly in the studio that serves as their refuge. A student he loved in another life. A former lover confined to a hospital in New York.
6.2Ten years after his original massacre, the invalid Michael Myers awakens on Halloween Eve and returns to Haddonfield to kill his seven-year-old niece.
6.5Whitney Wolfe uses extraordinary grit and ingenuity to break into the male-dominated tech industry.
6.9Shinji and Masaru spend most of their school days harassing fellow classmates and playing pranks. They drop out and Shinji becomes a small-time boxer, while Masaru joins up with a local yakuza gang. However, the world is a tough place.
6.5After twenty years away, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The king has finally returned home, but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.
7.3Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run.
4.9A successful psychoanalyst's life is turned upside down by a very anxious and extremely clingy patient who starts dating his daughter.
7.1Set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, a series of dramatic, consequential events unfold after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier, who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with a provincial family’s eldest daughter.
6.0As soon as Muffy St. John and her college friends arrive on her parents' secluded island, someone starts trimming the guest list... one murder at a time.
5.7As a little girl, Melanie Hogan wished to find her own prince charming just like her parents found true love. Now an adult, Melanie is running her own bakery and dating a handsome CEO, Justin. Although things seem perfect when Justin asks Melanie to spend the holidays together at his beautiful lake house upstate—and meet his mother. Melanie finds herself spending more time with Justin’s best friend and loyal assistant, Dean, who just might be harboring a secret crush on her. When complications arise that throw Melanie and Dean together over the holiday, will the two realize they're meant to be?
5.5After their partner swap experiment takes a turn, four friends arrive at a remote beach hut to face the fallout and purge themselves of deeper truths.
6.3Balto and his daughter Aleu embark on a journey of adventure and self discovery.
7.5This generous collection includes 46 of the 48 shorts that starred Goofy between 1939 and 1961 (but none of the great Mickey-Donald-Goofy films from the mid-'30s). The "How to Ride a Horse" sequence in The Reluctant Dragon (1941) set the pattern for many of these cartoons. An elegant narrator (artist John Ployardt) explains a sport that Goofy attempts to demonstrate. The character that animator Art Babbitt described in a 1935 lecture (quoted in the DVD bonus material) as an easygoing dimbulb gave way to an enthusiastic but spectacularly maladroit figure. One of the funniest entries in the series, "Hockey Homicide," contains several studio in-jokes: dueling stars Icebox Bertino and Fearless Ferguson, and referee Clean-Game Kinney are named for artists Al Bertino, Norm Ferguson, and director Jack Kinney.
6.0A mentally ill man in a small Texas town goes on a killing rampage and is fatally wounded by police. When doctors use an experimental serum to bring him back to life, the killer develops superhuman strength and the town sheriff must pursue him.
7.2First installment of the V-Cinema Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Trilogy: Another Ending will focus on the characters of Hiiro Kagami (Kamen Rider Brave) and Taiga Hanaya (Kamen Rider Snipe). Saki, who is supposed to have disappeared, shows up and Hiiro is concerned. However, Lovelica was behind her reappearance and he is controlling her! Also, Luke Kidman, a mysterious American who is fond of Nico appears at Taiga’s hospital. However, he starts showing Lovelica’s Game Disease symptoms in front of Taiga, he didn't know that Lovelica is revived after he was killed by Cronus. The destiny of both heroes is put in jeopardy by the worst game plot ever. And God Kuroto Dan, lurking in the shadows has plans of his own…
7.2Second installment of the V-Cinema Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Trilogy: Another Ending will focus on the characters of Parado (Kamen Rider Para-DX) and Poppy Pipopapo (Kamen Rider Poppy). Saiko Yaotome is a doctor dedicated to recovery treatments and heads “Let's Make Bugsters”, a new training game created for the recovery of people that disappeared. The test run has Emu raising Parado and Saiko raising Poppy. There is something different about the Parado in the game, though. The “real” Parado has been trapped and he faces his mysterious double, with the strength of the bond with Emu.
7.4Final installment of the V-Cinema Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Trilogy: Another Ending will focus on the characters of Kuroto Dan (Kamen Rider Genm) and Kiriya Kujo (Kamen Rider Lazer). Genm has awoken! Kuroto Dan has obtained the God Maximum Mighty X and the world falls into the chaos that is Zombie Chronicle. Kiriya has found the key to face the power that not even Muteki can overcome and after receiving a certain message from Masamune, he faces Genm. What will become of these two and of the world?
4.7Life for teenage versions of Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Batgirl is complicated as they try to balance their schoolwork with secret identities and fighting crime.
6.3Tsukasa travels to his home world of the World of Decade, where he discovers the origin of his powers and his true heritage as the leader of Dai-Shocker. The film features all ten of the lead Heisei Kamen Riders, as well as all of the Shōwa period Kamen Riders, leading to a total of 25 Riders.
7.0Program of 6 short films: "Jean de la Lune" 1994 by Pascal Le Nôtre 3' "L'éléphant et la baleine" 1985 by Jacques-Rémy Girerd 8' "Meunier, tu dors" 1994 by Pascal Le Nôtre 3' "Petite escapade" (Little Getaway) 2001 by Pierre-Luc Granjon 6' "Le trop petit prince" (The Too Small Prince) 2002 by Zoïa Trofimova 8' "Au bout du monde" (At the End of the World) 1999 by Konstantin Bronzit 8'
2.8Thousands of years ago, aliens visited Earth and fathered the Pumaman, a man-god with supernatural powers entrusted by a gold mask with the ability to control people's minds, which in present-day London, falls into the wrong hands.
5.4Criminals and a beautiful but cunning hitchhiker must battle a supernatural force known as the Reaper.
6.7Colonel Heeza Liar jumps off the drawing board and into the real world to track down a stolen rooster.
7.3A heroic version of Lex Luthor from an alternate universe appears to recruit the Justice League to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the League. What ensues is the ultimate battle of good versus evil in a war that threatens both planets and, through a devious plan launched by Batman's counterpart Owlman, puts the balance of all existence in peril.
6.6When his attempt to save his family inadvertently alters the future, Barry Allen becomes trapped in a reality in which General Zod has returned and there are no Super Heroes to turn to. In order to save the world that he is in and return to the future that he knows, Barry's only hope is to race for his life. But will making the ultimate sacrifice be enough to reset the universe?
6.5Among the many animation treasures celebrated here are the never-before-released 'Hell's Bells' and the original unedited 'Mother Goose Goes Hollywood', plus the Academy Award winning 'Three Orphan Kittens' (Best Cartoon, 1935). Enriching the collection even further are several options commentaries by some of the world's foremost animation and film music experts, who also take part in a lively conversation about the series that let Walt Disney push the envelope of animation art to unimaginable flights of fantasy.
7.4When a hulking monster arrives on Earth and begins a mindless rampage, the Justice League is quickly called in to stop it. But it soon becomes apparent that only Superman can stand against the monstrosity.
7.0In the wake of The Death of Supermen, the world is still mourning the loss of the Man of Steel following his fatal battle with the monster Doomsday. However, no sooner as his body been laid to rest than do four new bearers of the Superman shield come forward to take on the mantle. The Last Son of Krypton, Superboy, Steel, and the Cyborg Superman all attempt to fill the vacuum left by the world's greatest champion. Meanwhile, Superman's death has also signaled to the universe that Earth is vulnerable. Can these new Supermen and the rest of the heroes prove them wrong?
5.0Short animated version of the Chinese folktale, Nüwa Mends the Heavens