Posted

Nov 30th 2008

Mood

Enthusiastic

EDIT: I realized I forgot to mention one movie I just saw with was completely awesome and epic and so cute I lost a couple teeth! I'll just put it right here at the beginning:

Wall-E: Omigeds! It's just so damn cute~ If you haven't seen this movie yet, what's wrong with you?! It's already out on DVD and I regret not seeing it in theatres! TT__TT (Yes, I spell theatre "re" instead of "er" even though I'm from Americaland.) The graphics are just... just... beyond uncanny valley. But as I've long suspected for CG, it's great for all things artificial. The machines looked real, I thought the buildings were actual footage at first, the detail they put into making them look worn and old was amazing. The people... looked completely fake. The plant looked great though, like a real plant. But getting realistic looking people with CG is a little hard and well... 700 years of microgravity left them not very people proportioned anymore anyways and I loved the very round, biological feel they had. The people weren't complex polygons, they really seemed very soft and round as opposed the tough and boxy Wall-E. It's a touching love story and an epic tale of the human will and a fun little comedy about introducing a little chaos into an otherwise smoothly running, static, enclosed environment. WATCH IT!


Wow, it's been a while since I talked about the movies I had seen recently. I don't know if I ever did talk about Iron Man but whatever, you should know it's awesome epicness by now and instead I'm going to start with the last action flick I saw this last summer...

Tropic Thunder. I didn't actually want to watch it, my hubby did and I just went with him because it's silly and selfish to only do what I want. But man, I'm so extremely glad I went!! It was hilarious! Exactly what the commercial said it was: a spoof of war movies about a bunch of actors making a war movie! And it was just... so well done! Ben Stiller and uh... the actor who played Tony Stark and some other guys who's names I should know but don't. Whatever, they were all really funny and had great on screen chemistry! I really felt like I was watching these actors fail at making this sucky movie! But one of the great ways they pulled us in was the trailers. Instead the regular trailers for other movies they made fake trailers for the "actors" in Tropic Thunder! It was just so... comedy gold and absolutely ingenious! I loved it beginning to end and when it comes out on DVD we all need to go watch it again!

Porco Rosso. I finally got to see this older Miyazaki film! It's, of course, a really great anime movie produced by the awesome Ghibli Studios. It's about an Italian dog fighter from... I'm not sure what era. WWII-ish about... but this pilot was cursed to have the face of a pig, hence the name of the movie (Italian for Red Pig). He has a bright red plane, BTW. And well... it's just plain great story telling! An American ace pilot is hired by the local Air Pirates (whose asses Porco kicks all the time) to get Porco out of the picture (they want him dead, kay?) So there are some epic dog fight scenes, Porco's beautiful plane is nearly destroyed, everyone thinks he's dead, he finds a genius engineer to re-build his plain and all manner of hijinks with the American pilot ensue. It's just all around a great movie and if you like Miyazaki you already know you'll like this!

Speaking of Miyazaki... Ponyo on the Sea Cliff. I uh... may have seen it already and may know where you can find a torrent of a pretty decent sub. >.> It's just so adorable! Ponyo is a... fish? Some sort of special fish, really. But after tasting human blood she becomes a mermaid (or something) but wants to be human so she can stay with Sosuke, the human whose blood she's tasted. But they're really small (about 5) so it's more of a cute little kiddy fairy tale than a romance. Oh geds, Ponyo's father is even more creepy and effeminate than Howl! I loved this movie and I will watch it again.

Legend of Black Heaven. I know it's not a movie, it's actually an anime series but I really wanted to talk about it! It's the story of a boring salary man who used to be lead guitarist of an 80s rock band called Black Heaven. But his humdrum life is interrupted by a beautiful, busty blond who tells him she needs his music to fight the evil space invaders or the Earth will be taken over! He kind of shrugs her off but eventually just goes along so he can play the guitar again. I haven't finished it but I'm so excited that I finally get to see the series after seeing one dubbed episode on the International channel back when it was good... at least two years ago. Maybe more. Yeah... I've been looking for the series THAT long! I didn't even know the name because I didn't get to see the whole series. But I've seen most of it now and intend to finish it soon.

Princess Tutu. Well, so long as I'm mentioning awesome anime series I may as well say that I recently re-watched Princess Tutu and I still adore the series! It's a really sweet series about a duck who would do anything for the Prince, but she can't do anything because she's just a duck. Then a mysterious old man turns her into a girl with the duty of returning the Prince's heart to him. To do this she must find the heart pieces and turn into the graceful, beautiful Princess Tutu and do a lot of ballet. The whole series takes place inside a little German village called Kinkan Town (or Gold Crown Town, apparently). As the story continues the plot becomes more and more confusing and complicated until... well... I don't want to spoil it. But I highly, highly recommend it! If you like maical girl stories, or ballet, or complex love stories, or complicated and deeply thought out plots then watch Tutu. It's still not so complicated that it becomes a mind fuck, but I found the story to be deeply engrossing, charming, and well thought out. And everything ties together so well that whoever made this anime had it planned out from the beginning, there's too much hinting for it to be thrown together as they went, even if they went for that feel. They really had to, with the way the plot works though, and that just adds to it all the more.

Speaking of magical girls, I also recently re-watched Pretear (with an accent over the first e). It's about a girl who lost her mother at a young age and is left pretty much taking care of her useless, author dad. The actual aime starts shortly after her father re-marries to a widow with two daughters of her own, which sounds a little familiar... Anyways, Himeno (telling name, no?) has a hard time adjusting to her new life as the step-daughter of the CEO of some large company and falls into a funk when seven bishi (three of which are still shota) tell her that she is the Pretear and is the only one who can save the world. But the real plot is about Himeno coming to terms with her new life and the role of Pretear itself rather than just the fighting. It has a rather deep story about growing up and dealing the curveballs life tends to throw us. I also like the fact that Himeno has a different outfit depending on which bishi she fuses with, because that's the power of the Pretear. Very fun for some embarrassing moments the first couple of episodes. Another thing I love is the inspiration drawn from fairy tales (like Tutu). In the manga the author mentions that the story is inspired by Snow White and she wondered what the story would be like if the dwarves were instead tall, handsome bishi. (Personally the step-mother and two step-sisters remind me personally of Cinderella.) But I think one of the greatest plot developments is the Author's exploration of the "evil queen" from Snow White in that she was herself, at one point, a lovely and innocent princess much like Snow White...

Well, that's all for today. I hope my babbling was at least a little insightful. If you want to know more about an anime or movie feel free to ask, though I may accidentally spoil something, I was trying really hard not to.