Metropolis (May 21 at 9:35 p.m. and May 22 at 3:45 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque

I have to confess, I haven’t seen this particular “2002 restoration” of Fritz Lang’s classic METROPOLIS. For those of you smart enough to know that movies go all the way back to the 20th century, you may be aware that various editions of this 1926 German Expressionist science-fiction spectacle have circulated, some missing about a half-hour or more of footage.

The long, long film was typically cut to pieces by unscrupulous theater owners to more comfortably fit their timetables. Director Lang, fleeing the Nazis for a Hollywood career, didn’t exactly have the opportunity to pack all his reels in the luggage. When Berlin was bombed during WWII, copies of what would have been considered the “original” METROPOLIS all wound up destroyed. From time to time a new alleged restoration of the film would show up – a famous 1984 colorized one from composer Giorgia Moroder using still photos as storyboard bridges to fill in the gaps in the missing chapters.

But it was in the early 21st century that (in addition to all the jobs going to China, the middle class getting exterminated and the prospect of a good life being stolen from all but the top two percent of rich people (oh, happy graduation season, by the way (good luck paying those student loans with part-time minimum wage McJobs (if you’re even lucky enough to get one (being the son or daughter or niece or nephew of a company VP might help; I hoped you all planned that))) a copy of METROPOLIS more complete than any other extant surfaced in South America.

(Now, what are the chances that the late, great SF/fantasy buff David Massaro, Cleveland’s answer to Forrest J Ackerman, probably had a print of the authentic, complete METROPOLIS on one of his cluttered shelves – how well I remember his residence - all this time, but nobody paid attention to him about it. (typical Cleveland situation (just like nobody in the real world will pay attention to your resumes and employment applications, grads (or did I mention that already?))))

Dope Island: Just in time for Pearl Harbor Day, the latest from Japan

As my regular readers (the columnist laughs ruefully, pauses) ...know, I have a sideline watching and reviewing fresh home-video releases in Japanese animation.

This is a curious personal situation, as Japanese history and culture holds certain negative associations for me. Pearl Harbor, the Rape of Nanking, the bad KARATE KID sequels and some other disagreeable episodes that the Chinese and the Koreans and the Filipinos won't soon forget.

Why would Japan, this sequestered, homogeneous nation of rigid, militaristic fanatics who elevated their Emperor Hirohito to the level of god, come to nurture a most amazing industry of "manga" comic books and eye-dazzling animation. With incredible emotional depth, unique themes and nuances? Nothing in Japan's old-school scrollworks, samurai swords, incomprehensible kabuki theater or calligraphy looks to my foreign-devil-barbarian POV like Speed Racer or Pokemon - enjoyable stuff, in which, by the way, almost no characters even resemble ethnic Japanese, not even remotely. Where'd they get the mojo?

Yeah, fans say the style was set by the genius artist Osamu Tezuka, and everyone afterwords just imitated his Astro Boy aesthete. But here's my alternative conspiracy theory:

Karate-Robo Zaborgar (now on home video)

[KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR is now available on home video.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Stuck for a Christmas gift for that certain breed of cult-film connoisseur with a yen for low-rent Japanese superhero kitsch of yesteryear? In other words, for Cleveland filmmaker Robert Banks? The description fits pretty much nobody else I can think of. Once Robert showed an Ultraman episode on 16mm at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Counted for me as the high point in that institution's existence.

So okay, stuck for a Christmas gift for Robert Banks? Then allow me to recommend KARATE-ROBO ZABORGAR. Director Noboru Iguchi, obviously a fan, does an over-the-top campy revisit here to a genre that would seem beyond parody, the live-action sci-fi karate-action superheroes of yesteryear's Japanese children's television. Anyone for a Kikaider Kick?

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (October 28th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE screens Friday October 28th at 9:25 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Robots equals big box-office, right? The TRANSFORMERS movies, without a brain in their mechanical heads, are licenses to print money (and action figures). And Steven Spielberg - who co-produced TRANSFORMERS, remember - is next doing an adaptation of Daniel Wilson's war-against-robots novel Robopocalypse (which I've just finished reading; let's just say that, as with Jaws, odds are the movie will be better). Who can imagine a robot epic that doesn't draw crowds?