The second installment in "The Walter Lantz Archive" includes 45 Woody Woodpecker cartoons from 1952 to 1958, and an assortment of films made between the early '30s and the mid-'60s. During the '50s, when the Warner Bros. directors were crafting some of the funniest cartoons ever made and MGM's "Tom and Jerry" series was winning Oscars, the Lantz shorts ranked as second-rate at best. Although some talented artists worked on them, the Woody films from this era feel stale and formulaic: the gags lack punch and the character never develops as a personality. Five Oswald the Lucky Rabbit films qualify as genuine rarities. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created the character; Universal's Carl Laemmle took Oswald from Disney and ultimately gave him to Lantz. "Carnival Capers" (1932), "Five and Dime" (1933), and "Wax Works" (1934) reveal just how strongly the early Oswald resembled Mickey, down to the two-button shorts and chunky shoes. But the animation remains crude, rubbery and weightless. The most interesting of these cartoons is "Puppet Show" (1936), which juxtaposes live action footage of marionettes with drawn animation of the same characters. At this point, Oswald, who pulls the puppets' strings, had been re-designed to look like a white Easter Bunny. [+]

There are hundreds of thousands of companies in modern Tokyo, but only one Phantom Quest Corporation, a firm that specializes in exorcisms and troublesome spirits. Its founder and CEO is Ayaka Kisaragi, a red-haired klutz whose lipstick turns into an enchanted sword when she needs to dispatch vampires, demons, or ghosts. She's assisted by the exorcist Rokkon, the medium Madame Suimei, the innocent-looking Nanami, and Mamoru, a long-suffering computer whiz who tries to reconcile Ayaka's profligate spending with her limited income. The tone of Phantom Quest suggests Ghostbusters remade for Bette Midler-Ayaka drinks too much, oversleeps, and murders songs in karaoke settings, but she comes through in the end. Her tongue-in-cheek adventures juxtapose supernatural villains with slapstick comedy, much of it involving her put-upon beau, Detective Karino. In "Kiss of Fire," they defeat Count Dracula (whose coffin has been purchased as a novelty by a Japanese businessman) but trash Tokyo Tower in the process. The most satisfying of the four adventures is "Love Me Tender," in which the ghost of an archeologist tries to protect his former fiancée from beyond the grave. Possible sequels are hinted at in the DVD extras. Rated 13 and up for nudity, violence, sexual situations, and occasional profanity. -Charles Solomon.

A visual knockout, Titan A. E. is an ambitious animated feature that combines traditional animations, computer-generated imagery, and special effects in the service of a science fiction adventure plotted with narrative conventions familiar from Star Wars and Star Trek. Credit directors Don Bluth (An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH, Anastasia) and Gary Goldman with crafting a vivid, convincing look to this deep space saga, which conjures some stunning images. A tense opening sequence climaxing in the destruction of Earth, a watery planet where delicate but deadly hydrogen trees float, joyriding in a starship while pursued by playful "space angels," and a nerve-wracking journey through a lethal maze of massive ice crystals each qualify as mesmerizing sequences in any film context. What's visually stunning proves intermittently stunted on the narrative front, however. Orphaned when the evil Drej atomize Earth, protagonist Cale (voiced by Matt Damon) must journey across space to unlock the mystery of his late father's final project, the Titan spacecraft, in a test of faith and filial identity that echoes Star Wars. The Titan itself ultimately poses a cosmic potential familiar to admirers of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Comical sidekicks (Nathan Lane, Janeane Garofalo, John Leguizamo), a sultry love interest (Drew Barrymore), and a roguish mentor (Bill Pullman) all verge on the generic, narrowly redeemed by dialogue from a writing team including Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon. It's likely that Titan's target audience of young males prompted the filmmakers to walk a tightrope between softer family features and more violent, hard-edged anime. [+]

Manhattan's rodent population is being terrorized by a vicious night monster, and Fievel's spending many sleepless nights worrying about his family's safety. In search of a little reassurance, Fievel accompanies his sister, Tanya, to her job at the local newspaper. What he gets instead is an assignment to accompany the fearless reporter Nellie Brie as she delves into the story. Many frightening misadventures follow, and Fievel's family is placed in peril in the process. With a little help from Tony and Tiger, Fievel and Nellie track down the unexpected villain in the depths of the city's sewer system and, ultimately, put her out of commission. This wonderfully animated, 76-minute made-for-video feature stars everyone's favorite American Tail characters and three pleasurable new songs by Michele Brourman and Amanda McBroom. Voice talents include Dom DeLuise as Tiger, Lacey Chabert (Party of Five) as Tanya, Robert Hays (Airplane!) as Reed, Thomas Dekker as Fievel, and Susan Hoyd as Nellie. This is a fast-paced, action- packed video that offers an insightful look at understanding, embracing, and conquering one's fears. It's great entertainment for ages 5 and older. -Tami Horiuchi.

Many anime fans acclaim writer-director Hiroyuki Yamaga's Wings of Honneamise as a masterpiece, but general audiences may react less enthusiastically. Honneamise is a small country in a parallel world very similar to Earth. Shiro Lhadatt, the least impressive cadet in the air force flight school, volunteers to become the first astronaut in a controversial space program. Training toughens his body, while the priggish evangelist Riqunni challenges him to discipline his spirit. In one distasteful sequence, Shiro attempts to rape her. The next morning he starts to apologize, only to have her apologize for braining him with a candlestick, a scene certain to infuriate feminists. Despite an invasion by a hostile country, Shiro gets into space and delivers a ponderous homily from his capsule. Wings was made by a group of young artists in 1987, and with a record- setting budget. Art director Hiromasa Ogura's lavish designs blend '80s high-tech with art nouveau, and Yamaga's leaden pacing gives viewers the time to study every detail. Fans of Honneamise acclaim it as a critical meditation on the illusions and follies of the human race, which suggests that profundity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. [+]

Based on a manga series by Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell), Appleseed is an interesting, early mecha adventure. After World War III, "General Management Control Office" created the model city of Olympus for the survivors. They also created the "Biodroids," half-human cyborgs designed to serve humanity. Dunan Nats is a tough female cop; her partner, Buliarous Hekatonecles, was badly injured in the war and rebuilt with mechanical limbs and sensors. Together they pursue a cyborg terrorist and a rogue officer who want to destroy Olympus, which they see as an elaborate cage that limits human freedom. Released the same year, 1988, Akira pointed the way to much of the future of anime. Appleseed largely summarized its past. The character designs display a strong Western influence, the mecha are simpler than they would become in a few years, the violence looks tame by contemporary standards, and the chase sequences are accompanied by what sounds like elevator music. Although Dunan is clearly the ancestor of Motoko in Ghost in the Shell, she keeps her clothes on. Significantly, the forces of law and order emerge victorious, rather than the freedom-seeking rebels of this elegant dystopia. [+]

It's very rare indeed for a single DVD to function as pure entertainment and a valuable archive of animation history, but this award-winning Lumivision disc offers all that and more. Once hailed as "America's Greatest Cartoonist," Winsor McCay (1869-1934) was a master draftsman and illustrator who began his career as a newspaper illustration artist and editorial cartoonist in the late 1890s and later created the milestone comic strips "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend" (1904) and "Little Nemo in Slumberland" (1905). McCay then advanced to become one of animation's true pioneers, and this exemplary DVD collects every surviving film that McCay ever made. His best-known short, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), not only promoted the public's ongoing fascination with dinosaurs, but its title character (a lovable brontosaurus) was perhaps the first prehistoric creature in movie history to be imbued with expressive behavior and human characteristics. Another highlight is The Sinking of the Lusitania, an anti-German World War I propaganda masterpiece from 1918. Lumivision's DVD spans McCay's creative output from 1911 to 1921, and also includes extensive liner notes by animation historian John Canemaker. Predating Walt Disney's earliest efforts by as much as a decade, McCay's amusing and finely crafted films offer a perfectly preserved treat for animation lovers and general viewers alike. -Jeff Shannon.

Japan faces the expensive problems of caring for an aging population. As a solution, Mr. Terada, an official in a mysterious government ministry, unveils the Z-001, a high-tech bed that cares for an invalid's every need. His chosen guinea pig of a patient is Mr. Takazawa, an aged man in the care of Haruko, a pretty young nurse. Haruko realizes that the machine can't attend to Mr. Takazawa's emotional needs and tries to rescue him. When Terada foils her efforts, she turns to a group of elderly patients-who turn out to be ace hackers. The complications pile up when an unscrupulous member of Terada's staff reveals that the Z-001 is actually a prototype battle robot. But once Haruko's aged hackers gain control of it, the Z-001 takes on the personality of Mr. [+]