Easter Ham

Today is Easter Sunday, and when I think Easter, I naturally think of Charlton Heston.  Besides his Religious Epics of the 1950s and his right-wing gun-nut political activism for the NRA in the 1990s Heston is probably best known for his Science Fiction films of the 1960s and 70s (and Khartoum - how could I forget Khartoum?).  So today, to commemorate a holiday about bunnies and candy (and something about some guy named Yeshua ben Yosef, I'm not sure though) I’m going to tackle a trio of dystopian films starring one of the greatest chewers of scenery ever and give you the

Charlton Heston Triple Sci-Fi Movie Extravaganza

Let’s go in chronological order, shall we?

And let’s dispense with the spoiler alert straight off because just about everyone knows the endings and surprise twists to these films.

"Yeah, kid, I thought he was great in El Cid too."

Planet of the Apes (1968) – A team of astronauts in hibernation crash on a distant planet hundreds of years after traveling through the galaxy near the speed of light.  The three surviving travelers explore the world they’ve arrived on and discover that on this planet intelligent apes rule while mute, savage humans are treated like despised animals.  After being separated from his companions and captured Taylor –  the leader of the group – now has to find a way to convince his simian captors that he is not only intelligent but also not worthy of extermination.

Where's Rod?

This movie is the best of the lot, and no wonder… it was co-written by Rod Serling, the genius writer behind The Twilight Zone.  In fact, this movie sometimes feels like an extended episode of that show and could be considered the first Twilight Zone movie (there was an actual TZ movie made in ’83 but I haven’t seen it).  The twist ending, of course, is pure Serling.  So is the dialogue.  So is the overall message and theme of the whole thing, which ties into the ending.

The United States Government at work.

And it’s the ending that makes this thing truly gripping and downright different, too.  The shocking revelation that Taylor was really on Earth the whole time completely flips the movie’s moral conflict upside down.   Dr. Zaius – the film’s main antagonist and source of anti-human vitriol – is *right*.  Man really is a savage, violent beast.  Look at the final result of what humanity did to wipe itself out at the end of the movie.  But at the same time the apes are not much better; in fact they are almost like (gasp) humans with all of the same prejudices, societal stratification and the corrupt suppression of truth in the name of order.  Yes, humans really are as bad as Dr. Zaius says they are – but is that a good  justification for the way they are treated?

The direction by Franklin Schaffner is superb.  The music score by Jerry Goldsmith is both awesome and revolutionary.  The special effects and ape makeup are great and mostly convincing.  And yes, the acting by Heston can go over the top, but it doesn’t happen that often and when it does it’s an asset to the movie.  Planet of the Apes is a science fiction classic, and is easily the best film of the three reviewed here.

Yeah, this is how I play too.  It's the only way I can win.

The Omega Man (1971) – Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth.  However, he is not alone.  A plague has wiped out most of humanity and turned the remaining few survivors into insane, nocturnal, zombie-like killers.  These infected mutants, calling themselves The Family continually try to kill Neville as he is the last reminder of the world that existed before the catastrophe.  But the “last man alive” is about to discover something that may give humanity –and himself – hope and the means to go on living in a hell of a world.

Hmm, Pasty skin, facial sores... so kinda like me as a teenager.

 From the best of the lot we go to the worst.  That doesn’t make this a horrible movie though, just a painfully mediocre one and definitely the least of Heston’s sci-fi efforts.  The moral conflict this time *tries* to be complex with Neville being given some flawed attributes and Matthias (the leader of The Family) being portrayed as not completely evil, but in the end we know who we’re supposed to root for.  The story has plotholes.  Characters do really stupid things for almost no reason at all.  

We all know the sistahs can't resist Chuck Heston.

The romance between Neville and Lisa is sudden and not developed that well – remember what I said about Charlton Heston and leading ladies (although to be fair Heston and Rosalind Cash have a lot more chemistry than Heston and Sophia Loren or… that chick what’shername… from Ben-Hur)?   I mean, I know that they’re two of the last people on Earth and that they have to start breeding, but I think I would give it a little more time between “get up against the wall and spread ‘em or I’ll blow your head off” and “I want to have your babies right now.”  And we’re never given a reason as to what the last woman on Earth finds attractive in Charlton Heston, except for the fact that he is Charlton Heston. 

I think this may be where his obsession with guns started.

The direction is tepid.  The music score is also pretty bland, which is a shame considering that it’s by Ron Grainer who gave us the themes for Doctor Who and The Prisoner, for crying out loud.  In addition The Omega Man is horribly dated – which is something I forgot to mention about the last film, by the way:  because of the setting and the fact that most of the actors in it are wearing ape masks, Planet of the Apes doesn’t date itself too badly (except for the “don’t trust anyone over 30” line).  The Omega Man is obviously a product of the early Seventies, which isn’t in itself a bad thing but the film throws it in your face all the time.  In all fairness though the movie is pretty cool for the first third when it’s just Heston trying to survive in a deserted downtown LA against undead plague zombies.  You can just tune out though once the love interest and the kiddies come in.

"Says here my library books are overdue.  Fine: $500,000."

Soylent Green (1973) – In a future where overpopulation overwhelms the globe and starvation is a very real threat the Soylent Corporation supplies half of the world’s food supply in the form of small, nutritious wafers called Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow.  Robert Thorn is a police detective in New York City in the year 2022.  Along with his partner Sol Roth he investigates the murder of a Soylent Corporation bigwig, which leads to government cover-ups, further assassination attempts and a shocking discovery about Soylent’s newest food product, Soylent Green.

Okay, so is this New York or LA?

Mmmm, Soylent Green....

This movie is infamous for its ending (“Soylent Green is PEOPLE!”) but its impact should be that it shows how horrible a world in which the few haves have so much and the many have-nots have so little really would be – that it would result in such a reprehensible method of feeding a massive population.  And that is the heart of all of the problems in the world, according to Soylent Green, and the film’s main message – the evils of overpopulation.  And we see this problem in the world today, although not quite to the level of this dystopian yarn (yet).  With populations of over one billion each it will be interesting to see how China and India deal with this issue.  China of course has instituted the One Child Policy, but they still have the question of how to feed all of their people (perhaps with… PEOPLE?).  India as far as I know has no method or plan for controlling their population.  Interestingly enough the United States does not have a hideous overpopulation problem right now and probably won’t (I hope) by 2022.  You never know, though… China and India could send us some of their surplus….

Why limit yourself to one woman?  This is the 70s, man.

Soylent Green falls square between the two preceding movies in the Heston Trifecta, being more serious, moving and intelligent than The Omega Man but less intelligent and more dated than Planet of the Apes.  In fact, it comes close to that film in terms of quality except for two things: the first is that it is more dated (apparently personal computers and cellphones no longer exist in 2022) and also that, once again we have a clunky romantic subplot forced into a movie that doesn’t need it.  The worst thing about it is that it’s even worse than the one for Omega Man… at least in that movie the love scenes served some purpose for the overall story.  Here they are completely superfluous.  And don't tell me it has something to do with feminism because that angle isn't developed at all.  Thorn has sex with glorified prostitute, Thorn leaves glorified prostitute.  What, did Heston have it in all of his contracts by the 70s that he have at least one nude scene in every movie with a woman at least half his age?

Where the film truly shines is in both its environmentalist and political social commentary (yes, try to wrap your head around that one – Charlton Heston in a socially progressive liberal movie) and in the interaction between Heston and Edward G. Robinson, who plays Roth.  It’s a pretty well-known fact that this was Robinson’s last film – he died soon after it was completed.  This makes all of their scenes together very poignant, and that’s even before learning that only Heston knew at the time about his colleague’s terminal cancer.  Therefore the tears shed in Roth’s death scene are real and just about moved me to tears.  Hearing two men profess their love for each other can be a beautiful thing.  Richard Fleischer’s direction is good but not awe inspiring, making Soylent Green a minor science fiction classic and an interesting product of a decade that gave us a lot of dystopian environmentalist warnings in celluloid form.

Well there’s your Charlton Heston Super Special.  I hope you liked it.

And you thought I would do The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur just because today is Easter and I talked about Charlton Heston.

Sigh.  Okay.  I’ll give you a religious Charlton Heston movie image so we can go out on a pious note.

Charlton Heston died for your sins.

Tonight's Dinner: Canned Tomatoes

Today, something a little different.  And that doesn’t just mean “no anime.”  I know that this is primarily a review blog about movies (and TV shows, and direct-to-video, and….) with a focus on actual content, but today will be different.  Today I will be posting an entry that is both a rant and a helpful guide to movies about deadly mutant produce, for today I take on the DVD release for one of my all-time favorite comedy films:

25th Anniversary DVD Review And Warning

I hate it when movie directors revisit their old films and “improve” them (see: Star Wars) with new SFX and soundtracks.  I hate it even more when they make these new versions the only ones commercially available on home video (again: Star Wars – and non-anamorphic laserdisc transfers don’t count, Lucasfilm).  As it turns out, George Lucas is not the only director to do this – even old low budget cult films are getting this treatment.  Hence, the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes 25^th Anniversary DVD.

The movie itself is great – in fact, it has been one of my favorites since I was a kid.  I’m not going to go into it too much as I a)have little time and b)this post is for people who have already seen the movie already and are wondering whether to pick up the DVD or not.  And my answer to question B is: no, do not pick up the DVD, even though the picture quality is so much better.

The problem I have with this DVD is that it contains the aforementioned “new” version of Killer Tomatoes, and only the new version.  Sometimes when directors redo old movies they only change an effect here and a sound there; nothing that huge (although still annoying).  For Killer Tomatoes they have gone back and added so much stuff and taken out so much stuff that I spent my first time watching this DVD spotting all of the changes made from the original theatrical cut that I had watched on VHS over and over for so many years.  I am not going to list every single change (that would take hours) but I will try to hit the highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be):

-You can tell right away that something is up when ominous music is played over the opening scroll (it was silent originally).  Also, the opening credits now have splat sounds played as tomatoes hit the camera.

-There are numerous background overdubs added to the movie.  Sometimes it’s really insipid – for example, someone will be being eaten off-camera and a person will be dubbed also offscreen saying something like, “Oh my god!  He’s being eaten by a tomato!”  Because otherwise the audience would have no idea what was going on, right?  The worst example is the scene right after the big battle between the Army and the rampaging fruits in San Diego when Mason Dixon walks dejectedly through the neighborhoods surveying the damage.  The new version adds a monologue/news report about the fall of humanity and bad hygiene.  The original had nothing but sad music playing, parodying old war movies; it was hilarious because it played it so straight.   

Yeah. Mason, I don't know where that monologue is coming from either.

-Also, some lines have been redubbed or edited and no longer have the same punch.  The best example is the radio spot segment at Mindmaker.  (“When you’re feeling sad and blue, tomatoes end it all for you!”).  By placing that ditty (which has also been rerecorded and thus sounds less funny) in the middle of the promos being played instead of at the end, the punchline (“Pretty classy, huh?” “With a capital K.”) loses its effectiveness.

-In a similar vein, some of the films jokes are punctuated with insert shots that do nothing but interrupt the flow of the comedy and remind you that they were inserted much later.  The most egregious example I can think of is the part in the beginning when the Japanese scientist knocks a picture of the USS Arizona off the wall.  In the original it just gets knocked onto the floor and you hear a crashing sound.  In the redo you see an insert where it lands in a fishtank.  Trying to improve on jokes twenty-five years after the fact is pretty lame, guys.   

In addition a close-up insert is included near the end to inform the audience what it should already know about the relationship between the tomatoes and “Puberty Love.”   

No! With all of the foreshadowing I never would have guessed that it was "Puberty Love!"

Oh, and a close-up is also provided of the “Puberty Love” sheet music so that you know exactly what Mason is holding in his hands as he faces down the giant tomato at the climax.  This actually would have been more helpful on the old VHS where you couldn’t see what he was holding too well but it’s completely redundant in the DVD version seeing as how you can see (thanks to the clarity of the picture) exactly what he’s holding.

You can tell that it's sheet music, right?

Well, the filmmakers think you're an idiot, so here it is, anyway.

-The shot of the giant tomato chasing the lady with the shopping cart has been framed differently so that now you can’t see the wheels underneath that it’s riding on.  Come on guys, this is a low budget b-movie spoof… why bother going back to fix the FX?  The cheapness is part of its charm!

-Some lines and even whole jokes are removed.  The conversation between the President and Press Secretary about Air Force One (“Broken? The whole plane broken?” “Well, sir, you remember where the Washington Monument–”) and Air Force Two (“Hasn’t he returned that YET?”) has been deleted, for example.

-Whole scenes have been removed.  Some are small throwaway scenes and aren’t that big a deal.  Some are sorely missed.  The biggest is the dressing down of the reporter Lois by her newspaper boss (“You didn’t get the story… you ARE the story!”).   

The next biggest is the scene at the receptionists desk where it is remarked upon that plants respond to music (FORESHADOWING ALERT!).   

This is how I hit on secretaries all the time.

These exclusions puzzle me.

The only upside to the 25^th Anniversary disc is that the video quality is (as already mentioned) great compared to the old VHS.  I haven’t seen the Collector’s Edition, but I think it’s just this disc plus a bonus disc of special features (this DVD release has only one special feature: the trailer).  So the only way we’ll ever get the original theatrical cut of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes on DVD is if someone like Criterion rereleases it.




And now, just because I can - and because I find this picture utterly friggin' hilarious - let's end this post with this:

Late Work Can Be A Bitch

More catch-up, more mini-reviews, more anime.

Dreamy, but needs to learn to keep his hands to himself.

Vision of Escaflowne (TV Series, 1996) High School Student (it’s an occupation in Japan!) Hitomi is transported one day to the mystical land of Gaia, where she finds herself caught in a fight between Lord Van, the ruler of a small kingdom and the mighty Zaibach Empire, which is hunting her for her emerging psychic powers as well as planning to conquer the world and find the Secret of Atlantis.  Will Hitomi be able to elude the grasp of Zaibach?  Will she be able to help the inhabitants of Gaia find peace and prosperity?  Will she ever be able to go home again?  But most importantly, will she ever be able to choose between the cute but troubled Van and the dreamy (but also troubled) knight Allen Schezar?

Escaflowne is a very good fantasy show.  It moves quickly (no filler), has complex characters and it has good action and an intriguing story.  Watching this I was hooked, and watched multiple episodes in a row to see what happened next.  However, I can’t call it one of the absolute best anime shows ever, because there’s… something… missing.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.  Maybe for me it was missing the sense of life that the best of anime seems to have.  I don’t know.  I do know that it’s not that original.  “Japanese Schoolgirl Falls Into A Fantasy World Where She Is Special And Gets To Meet Cute Men” had been done before lots of times (it was a popular theme in the 90s); Escaflowne just merged that storyline with !GIANT ROBOTS!  And in fact, this show wasn’t even the first medieval-fantasy show with !GIANT ROBOTS!... that would be Aura Battler Dunbine, from 1983 – although admittedly Escaflowne is the superior show.

Sorry, Cham.

Escaflowne: The Movie (Film, 2000) A visually spectacular reimagining of the TV show; the story is completely different as are the characters (Princess Millerna is now a badass redhead, for example).  Only the basic setup remains the same.  And this is not a bad thing.  You could not tell the story of the original 26 episode TV show in one theatrical film.  Many fans do not like this movie.  I kind of liked it – it’s interesting to watch because it is so different from the original show.  Plus I liked the darker look and the different character designs (no pointy noses).  

If they start stripping I'm calling the Tank Police.

The only thing that keeps it from being a really good movie is that it’s too damn *short*.  This thing needed to be 2½ hours minimum to fit in all of the storyline and character development.  As it is it’s way too short and feels really rushed.  There’s some great art and animation though so I still recommend it to fans of the show or even anyone who is unfamiliar with the TV series – since the story is so different you don’t really need to know anything about Escaflowne going in.

Adolescence of Utena (Film, 1999) I’m not going to even try to describe the story of this one here, because I’m not sure that it’s even possible.  Suffice to say that it involves sword duels, weird architecture, odd imagery, strange private-school marriage rituals as well as more lesbianism and sexual symbolism than you can shake a stick at.

Or sword.

In fact the whole thing is basically a big metaphor for teen maturation as well as gay liberation.  And these are just two interpretations – part of the fun of this movie is just trying to figure out what it's all about.  The other fun part about Utena is that it’s so creative and different from everything else.  And the artwork and animation for this movie are nothing short of *spectacular*.  Seriously, check it out:

And the weirdest part is that this artsy piece of shojo cinema is brought to you by Kunihiko Ikuhara, the same dude who directed the majority of Sailor Moon.  So the guy who gave you this

Also did this

Anyway, this movie is gorgeous, wildly creative and will actually make you think.  As in, “What the Hell did I just watch?!”  Highly recommended.

Steamboy (Film, 2004) Remember when I said in my New Dominion Tank Police review that if I ever saw another Evil-Murdering-Weapons-Manufacturing-Corporation-Who-Tests-Their-Weapons-By-Making-War-On-An-Industrialized-First-World-Nation in anime again I was going to scream?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Five Star Stories (Film, 1989) Again, I’m not going to describe the whole story to this one as it is based on a manga that is more than 10 volumes long (and still running!) and has over 5000 characters (and I just might not be exaggerating).  In a nutshell though it’s about Ladios Sopp, a !GIANT ROBOT! mechanic (or, as this anime calls him, a “Mortar Hedd Meister”) who lands on a planet in the Joker Galaxy to try to free a genetically-engineered-giant-robot-pilot-girl named Lachesis (or not – the whole movie seems to be him being indecisive on this point) from the foul clutches of a fat and greedy planetary governor.

Our hero, Ladios Sopp.  Yes, gentle reader, he is a man. 

I really liked this movie, even if it ran at an incredibly short run time of just over an hour.  I guess director Kazuo Yamazaki just wanted to conserve the budget though because the artwork in this thing is great – very stylish.  The animation is pretty good but nothing to write home about (it’s above average movie animation for the 1980s).  The main thing going for it though is that it has a unique mood.  This is one of the few sci-fi films that truly make you feel that you are in a strange, almost alien future culture (kind of like David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, really, only not quite as disturbing and freakish).

I definitely recommend it for those that can look past its short running time (A LOT of story is compressed into this) and the fact that it’s from the Eighties.  For the love of God, though, if you get the DVD DON’T LOOK AT THE BOOKLET THAT COMES WITH IT BEFORE WATCHING THE MOVIE BECAUSE IT WILL SPOIL THE ENDING OF THE FILM FOR YOU.



Next Post: Something that is not anime, I promise–

 

Um, Cham, what are you doing?  Okay, Cham, I know you're probably upset over what I said earlier but that's not the way to express your–

Alright, Cham, I'm sorry about what I said earlier.  Let's just please talk about this like rational–

Cham?  Cham?  No, Cham, don't–

 

I'm Not Quite Dead Yet

I said in my last post that this blog was on hold for a while.  Well, a while has passed and it’s time to do a review again, because I don’t want to go on the cart just yet.  It’s going to be a (relatively) small review, because my life is still very busy and it will probably be another while before the next review proper, so here goes.  I just had to review today’s title – I was anticipating its release this month:  I have always wanted to see it and it has been a long time out of print (and at stupid used prices online – DAMN YOU AMAZON SCALPERS!).  Well, now it’s finally available, I’ve watched it and I love it.  Prepare yourself for

FLCL

OVA, 2000-2001

Director: Kazua Tsurumaki

Story

Naota is your typical Japanese 12 year old… except for the fact that an alien lady shows up one day, crashes into him with her Vespa scooter and whacks him upside the head with her Rickenbacker bass guitar.  And the fact that his brain is now missing.  Oh, and the fact that he now has robots springing out of his head.  How does it all tie together?  Hell if I know!

Review

Wow, is this an awesome anime series.  I know that the statement I just made is not a very eloquent or objective thing to say about something, but I’ll say it again.  Wow.   This OVA is one of the most creative, unique things I have ever seen... in any medium.  My plot synopsis and other reviews of this show make FLCL seem like nothing more than some spastic animated comedy, but it is so much more than that.  It is in fact many things at once: comedic and dramatic, wistful and witty, hyperactive and tranquil, bizarre and natural, realistic and fantastic, comfortable and unsettling.  There's enough ocular candy to make any animation enthusiast's eyes bleed, enough humor to tickle the funny bone of anyone in a funk, and enough convoluted themes and symbolism to make over-analytical academics positively orgasm in delight before writing whole books and dissertations (Susan Napier, I'm looking at you!).  Even the soundtrack is unique and extraordinary, consisting almost entirely of rock music by Japanese rock band The Pillows.  In short, FLCL is the whole of anime wrapped up into one big happy package and shoved into your brain for the ultimate animated high.  And this is as it should be, as it was Japan’s two greatest animation studios who brought you this thing – Production I.G. and (mainly) Studio Gainax.

Ah, Gainax.  After showing teenage girls being eaten alive by giant gruesome cyborgs and depicting the entire world being turned into orange tang in End of Evangelion, the maestros at Mindfuck Factory, Inc. must have wanted to do something lighter and less traumatizing.  First they tried making His and Her Circumstances, based on a shojo rom-com manga, but the original author threw a tantrum about their emphasizing the comedy over the romantic melodrama.  So they decided to do something lighter and original (so they wouldn’t have to deal with bitchy creators).  And FLCL is both very light (in tone, not density) and original (in story if not homages and references).  This Ova shows Gainax getting back to their roots as the preeminent superfans of anime, using their patented Gainax Homage System^™  in their references to their favorite animated classics: 1) Reference a trope or show 2) Mercilessly parody it  3) Celebrate it 4) Turn it up to 11.

Another way Gainax (and Production I.G.) makes this show so bold and innovative is through their awesome animation.  Different art styles and animation techniques are combined to give the viewer a one-of-a-kind experience.  Only Gainax would suddenly turn a scene into a manga, complete with panels… during a dinner conversation.  Just like with everything Gainax has ever done (where they have a budget, anyway) their love of animation itself is reflected in their work for all to behold.

However (as I said in my earlier Gunbuster review – also Gainax!) well animated crap is still crap.  What makes FLCL truly special are the great themes running through it.  The main theme of this show seems to be that adolescence suuuuuuuuuucks.  And it does.  Anyone who has gone through puberty will be able to sympathize with Naota, what with all of the changes his body goes through and his increasing alienation from those around him.  Oh, and his dealings with women (well, maybe men will be able to sympathize with him more).  In any other story (not just anime) Haruko would be this wonderful, carefree girl who showed up in the morose hero’s life to bring him out of his shell and show him how to believe in himself, love life, teach him all about the wonders of sex, and etc. etc. etc.  Well in THIS story Haruko does help Naota develop and come out of his shell, but although generally nice and sometimes maternal she is far from a wonderful dream girl – in fact she is self-serving, weird and can be downright vicious and infuriatingly enigmatic.  And as far as sex goes, she DOES teach Naota a thing or two – namely that sexual desire can be painful and confusing, as well as make robots randomly pop out of your head.

Well, before I start overanalyzing this thing and have something pop out of my head, let me conclude by saying that Gainax made another anime classic when they put together FLCL.  It is over a decade old at this point and it still seems fresh and modern.  If you like Studio Gainax or Production I.G., watch this.  If you like weird anime, watch this.  In fact, if you like anime at all you should probably watch this at least once to witness a group of animation masters practice their craft, completely unfettered by corporate concerns or audience expectation.  This is quite possibly the greatest anime OVA ever.

Screenshots

Mabase: just your typical Japanese town.

I am sure that the first thing that most of you noticed 

in this picture was that Haruko's Rick is left-handed.

Absolutely no disturbing psycho-sexual symbolic imagery going on here....

Haruko: the very image of delicate, ladylike femininity.

Yes, Canti, there is a silicon heaven.

There's a Vespa on the loose!  Run!!

FLCL: Now in exciting Mang-A-Vision!

-Ouch....

I think that's sort of cheating, Haruko....

Just an example of the subtle, nuanced humor in this show.

  

Next Post:  More mini-reviews.

Another Bloated Corpse In The Blogosphere

It brings me great sadness to announce this, and I realize that I am the only one who cares (no one else reads this blog) but I am putting the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre on hold for a while, possibly indefinitely.


I had fun writing this blog but I can longer devote the time to it... less than half a year after starting it.  I work in a crappy low-end retail job and I really, really want to find something better.  In order to do that I have to devote more time to job searching, and the fact is that right now I cannot do that and write for this at the same time.  Part of the problem is that right now I have no viable way to capture screenshots for my reviews, as I'm sure you've noticed looking at the past few reviews.  The only way I can capture shots at the correct aspect ratio right now (i.e. not having the image skewed) is to do print-screen manually, and this is a massive time suck - a time suck I can't afford to indulge in at the moment.

This is a shame, really as I was looking forward to reviewing some great stuff.  Vision of Escaflowne, Adolescence of Utena, Star Trek: The Animated Series...  I even had plans on doing an appreciation essay on Spartacus and why it's an underrated movie.  But with my current situation I can't do all that and actually, you know, obtain a real life.

I might do a little review from time to time, so PFT might not be on hold per se but on the back burner.  Just don't expect the same output as before, imaginary reader from my delusional mind.

Wow, I lied last time.  I said that I'd do something happy to chase away the mid-winter blahs and instead I did this....

You know what?  Screw it.  Here's a funny picture, so we can go out on a happy note.

Handing In My New Year's Catch-Up Work

Before I get too far into the new year I want to take a quick moment to briefly cover some of the stuff that I watched last year but wasn’t able to review for various reasons.  And by “stuff” I mean anime, since all three of the items below are Japanese and animated.  Shock upon shock!

Planetes (TV Series, 2003-2004) This show details the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a bunch of garbage collectors – the catch being that these are trash disposal workers of the FUTURE, and the waste that they are handling is orbital debris.  This is the science fiction show with the hardest *science* that I have ever seen – things move in microgravity the way they really would (I think… I have never been in space myself), physics are actually respected… the whole thing feels so real.  It’s no wonder that people at NASA reportedly love this show.  There is a real story happening in Planetes, though, so it’s not all real physics and garbage disposal – and the core story is a touching and emotionally involving one.  The only downside I can think of is that there are one or two moments of glurge, and it does get a little to over-the-top dramatically at a few points.  Other than that this show is a winner, with solid animation, good acting, and an intriguing story that is optimistic without being naïve.

Labyrinth Tales (Film, 1987) This is another animated anthology film involving Katsuhiro Otomo (wow… this guy likes these, doesn’t he?).  Three short films are presented: “Labyrinth” (directed by Rintaro) is the framing story, telling of a little girl and her cat who wind up at the titular labyrinth and its circus.  The next tale (“The Running Man,” by Yoshiaki Kawajiri) shows us a future where a deadly car-racing sport “Death Circus” is popular and the current champion will do anything to stay on top for his last race.  Otomo directs the last segment, “Construction Cancellation Order.”  In this story – the longest of the movie – a Japanese corporate drone is dispatched to a South American building project to halt construction after a government coup.  The problem is that the worker robots there don’t want to stop construction….  Labyrinth Tales, like Memories is a film that shows what anime and animation in general can and should be: intelligent and entertaining all at once.  “Labyrinth” is artsy and beautiful, “Running Man” is shallow but spectacular (my god, the animation!) and “Construction Cancellation Order” is smart and funny.  The only thing I can think of that might bring this title down a bit is the short running time (a total of 50 minutes).  No, you know what?  The running time doesn’t matter.  This is the perfect length for this – a nice short snack of anime instead of a large meal.  Sometimes you just need a snack.

Note: ADV released this on DVD in the US under the title Neo-Tokyo, presumably to cash in on Akira, even though this has nothing to do with Otomo's most famous work.  I decided to use the original Japanese title (you know, the one that's actually in the film's actual titles).  Also note that due to an encoding error the DVD is presented in 4:3, even though the movie is 1.85:1.  Basically what this means is:  if you are watching on an old 4:3 display the image is skewed and you're screwed, and if you're watching on a 16:9 you should stretch the picture to fill the screen. 

Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still (OVA, 1992-1998) I have to confess that the reason that I didn’t review this one wasn’t because of computer problems like the others but because I wasn’t sure about my feelings while watching it.  See, I was a little stressed out with various stuff when I watched this and I couldn’t focus on it a lot while watching it – I was too distracted to fully get into it.  I guess this is kind of indicative of its quality – that it couldn’t fulfill its basic function of entertainment (after all, what is entertainment for?).  Or maybe it’s just me.  Anyways, I couldn’t get into Giant Robo.  The animation and music were very nice but the story left me going “meh.”  I get what director Yasuhiro Imagawa was trying to do – combine every one of Mistuteru Yokoyama’s manga into one big homage – but it just didn’t click for me at all.  The biggest problem I think is that it’s so sober.  Oh, there are some light moments, but overall Giant Robo takes itself way too seriously for what it is and is way too operatic and heavy for a series that mixes giant super-robots with ancient Chinese wuxia characters.  Maybe one day I’ll watch it again when I’m in the right frame of mind.  Maybe.

 
I did enjoy the side-story OVA Ginrei Special though.  Seriously, it was way more fun than the actual show - this is what Giant Robo *should* have been.  And I guess Imagawa made up for Giant Robo by giving us G Gundam, which I will be reviewing at a later date.


And with that thought, this post is at an end.  Next time I think I'll review something positive and happy to fight off the mid-winter blahs.  Have fun!