If ever you want to show a character go “evil”, please, for goodness sake, don’t make him dance! (Spoilers below)

I admit I wasn’t looking forward to this one.  To me there was one sure-fire clue: three villains.  Any time a superhero movie franchise starts doubling up and then triple-teaming villains, the franchise has jumped the shark.  But still, the first Spiderman movie was good and pretty close to the comic book.  The second movie left me feeling a little flat, but was still entertaining.  But this one… oh man this was lame.

One of the big failings of this outing is the Bad Peter Parker.  In the alien symbiote storyline from the comic book, Spiderman’s new black suit has a life of its own and begins to feed and warp Peter Parker into an angrier, more vengeful version of himself.  Mostly Spiderman catching himself when he starts to pummle the bad guys too hard.  It was a dark, moody Spiderman and left you genuinely creeped out.

How can I feel creeped out when Parker pulls some hair down over his face like an Emo, buys some fancy clothes and goes dancing with Gwen Stacy to make Mary Jane jealous?  That whole segment of the movie just made my skin crawl.  It felt stupid, it felt forced and more importantly, it didn’t sell me on the dark side of Peter Parker.

To make things even more fun, there’s a plot twist at the end that you’ll see coming from the beginning of the movie.  A plot twist so retarded that the comic books never even stooped so low.  All I can say is, the Hobgoblin was a wasted opportunity.

I’ll stop here.  I keep wanting to throw up a little just thinking about this movie.  Sam Raimi, what happened to you, man?

Review: Korean Monster horror movie in the vein of Shaun of the Dead.

I kept hearing about how good a monster movie this was supposed to be. Best horror movie in decades, some said. Hey, it’s playing locally, I think I’ll go check it out!

These movies have a typical formula:

First: Create the monster. In this case, the opening scene is an American military officer ordering a poor, obedient Korean assistant to pour gallons of formaldehyde down the sink and into the major river. Based on a real incident, this ‘accident’ is the birth of the hideous mutation that, for reasons that really don’t make sense, is called The Host.  This is one of the scenes critics pounce upon showing how it shows Korea’s resentment of American military occupation.  It’s there, true, but it really is a minor note.

Second: Meet the average Joe hero(s). A lower-class (i.e., poor) family that survives selling snacks near the river from a rickety snack shack. The grandfather owns and runs the shack with his slacker son and the son’s more together daughter. The old man also has a chronically unemployed son and, in their one bright spot, a daughter who is an Olympic contender in archery, but she seems to choke when it counts.

Third: Introduce the conflict.  The creature jumps out of the river, eats a bunch of people and generally causes havoc. That’s when I realised it’s not really a monster movie, but a comedy. The hapless hero spends most of his time lucking out and getting involved in slapstick violence with the monster (and himself). After his daughter is abducted by the creature, the dysfunctional family pulls together to find her despite the authorities refusing to believe any of them.

There are other themes in the movie. For example, the movie maker seems to have a problem with the South Korean government’s deference to America, and America’s frightening disregard for people to cover up their own mistakes. But really, that’s a relatively small part of the movie. To me it’s the comedy of this family. They struggle mightily to find their beloved child, but their own ineptness and run-ins with the authorities waylay them. Cutting to the daughter surviving in the creature’s layer, she ends up being the most resourceful and intelligent of the bunch even managing to come up with a good escape plan.

The monster action is somewhere between laughable (in a bad way) and mediocre. There are better monster films out there. The evil authority type subplot is kind of interesting and much scarier than the monster actually, but I ended up liking the movie because of the bumbling, devoted family.

Watching the latest volume of Planetes I got from Zip.ca, I couldn’t help thinking: “This may be the hardest science fiction I’ve seen in years.” Planetes follows the lives of the Orbital Debris Collection division of the fictional transnational Technora. The series starts off slow, but gets better as we delve deeper into the flawed, but likeable characters. But that’s not what I’m writing about. It’s the science that’s gotten me excited about this series.

The director, in one of the episode commentaries early in the series, says he spent a lot of time learning about the physics of space especially orbits and microgravity. Boy, this series gets it soooo right. From the details of matching orbits to the little details of life in zero-gravity (for example, the interiors of the spaceship and space station were thought out with handhold and railings). But not content to stop there, they include some other interesting tidbits like what is a child was growing up in a low gravity environment. This series does the science and does it so well.

Of course the characters and writing are also very good. Even without the science, I’d be interested in this series. Hachimaki’s pursuit of his dreams despite his own lack of luck and ability is the kind of story that makes you want to stand up and cheer him on.

Definitely recommended for everyone.

“I liked Infernal Affairs more than The Departed.”

If I was drinking something I would have splurted it out. Infernal Affairs is a very good movie, but it has a fraction of the character exploration of The Departed. Infernal Affairs is nearly pure plot with a last-second character growth spurt. But I’ve heard this from several people now, and I was having a hard time understanding this.

First off, I haven’t seen Infernal Affairs II or III yet, so I can only compare these two movies. But The Departed gave me so much more. For example, why the mole in the police force was so loyal to the gangster (I’m describing characters by their role not their names for easy comparison). Infernal Affairs gives one almost nothing; we just assume he has some history. The Departed shows us the history. How growing up in the neighbourhood brought him into contact with the Gangster who took care of his family and showed the continued relationship. The mole in the gang had even less in Infernal Affairs. He just got selected to go deep under cover and occasionally had some angst, but that simply doesn’t compare to The Departed’s version of the character. We learn his pain. The fact his father was such a well-respected, decent person even the Gangster was in awe of the man. He comes from a family of ne’er-do-wells, yet was willing to give up everything to be the true cop. I think of the anguish we see in him throughout the movie of playing the bad guy, but deep, deep down inside, he was raised better, but meanwhile the Police Mole has a charmed life of entitlement and gets the laurels for being a good cop he so doesn’t deserve.

I’ve been told Infernal Affairs II, which is a prequel, does a lot to fill in this background, and I will be renting it soon, but still. How can people think The Departed is inferior to Infernal Affairs?

“Anime sucks!” Or so I’ve heard over the years. True a lot of anime is crap and frankly embarrassing, but there is a small subset of anime that I think is every bit as good as anything in live-action. Better in most cases. I’ve recommended some of the anime below to my friend, the anime hater, and he rather liked them.

Cowboy Bebop. This was the first anime I pointed him to. It’s probably one of the more successful crossover hits in anime. It’s got a cool style and a subtle story telling that’s reminiscent of Clint Eastwood’s westerns or film noir. And the characters were pretty entertaining and atypical for anime. It’s also blade runnerish at times. Humanity has colonized the solar system, Earth is abandoned and the only law you can count on are the bounty hunters, cowboys, that search the solar system for the next bounty. Cowboy Bebop follows the stories of four bounty hunters, Spike, Fay, Jet and Ed, as their paths temporarily cross.

Quite a well written series with sense of character that puts most live-action TV to shame.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex. Don’t talk to me about The Matrix or whatever crap wanna-be you got. This is the definitive cyberpunk TV series — ever! Motoko, The Major, leads a para-military squad that doesn’t just react to crime — they hunt it down and eliminate it before it. Public Security Section 9 is the domestic counter-terrorist/counter-intelligence unit that protects the new Japan in the far future from terrorists and cyber criminals. The show has a solid sense of world and plot that often makes me re-watch scenes just to follow the story. And Section 9 has memorable, likable characters.

Tokyo Godfathers. Film critics were pretty positive about this film from Satoshi Kon (and it’s probably his most mainstream film ever). It’s a crazy Three Wisemen story with three homeless people and an abandoned baby and their quest to return it to its rightful parents on Christmas Eve. The three protagonists steal you heart as you find out about their troubled lives and how they don’t want this new life to follow in their awful footsteps.

Millenium Actress. Satoshi Kon’s movie prior to Tokyo Godfather. Two journalists come to interview an aging famous screen actress and to find out about the mysterious love of her life that she’s been looking for since World War II. The movie is a surreal trip between reality and film reality where the actress lives out her quest in the roles and scenes she played in. Visually quite an interesting movie.

I’ll have more later…

“Did you know it was based on the comic strip?”

“Really? I thought it was just coincidence.”

“I can’t recommend it.”

“Why?”

So the conversation with my friend went. Not content to leave well enough alone, I received Over the Hedge in the mail from Zip.ca. I thought maybe he was being over-critical, but man, is this movie ever mediocre

The story is the kind of thing you see in every family film for the last 20 years. Right down to the heart-warming message about family. (Where’s the projectile vomiting icon?) The comic strip is kind of sassy and sarcastic with some trippy commentary on modern life. The movie was… um… CGI.

The Raccoon, RJ, is the highlight of the comic strip providing most of the wry one-liners. Here, he’s just Bruce Willis reading a script. Reading the original strip again, I can see why Bruce Willis would come to mind, but he’s too famous to do voice acting now. You can’t help but point at the screen jumping up and down and screaming: “That’s not a cartoon raccoon, that’s Bruce Willis!” (What? I’m the only one??)

The other characters were “we have some guest stars in mind, let’s come up with characters that fit their shtick.” So for example, Wanda Sykes as Stella the Skunk was no different than her stage performance. William Shatner as the over-acting opossum with copious reference to Shatner’s reputation as an actor. Getting the picture yet? This movie is a bunch of celebrity cameos with their actor’s usual character wrapped around them.

The story itself was dull and very, very predictable. Con man takes advantage of innocent community. One wise character is skeptical, but the con man humiliates and undermines him (this is called a Cassandra character). Con man leads the community into disaster and makes away with his spoils only to feel guilty about leaving everyone in the lurch. Con man makes ammends and saves the day. Oh wait, I’m describing The Music Man! No, I was wrong, I’m still describing Over the Hedge.

The only highlight in this dull film is a couple of climactic sequences: a chase scene and the rescue scene. I admit I laughed during the chase scene, but then again, that’s the only part of the movie that really feels like the original comic strip. The rest of the movie feels like it was Story Departmented into nothingness.

I’d say watch something else. It’s not really worth the time and effort.

If you’re a new anime fan, or even an old one, you’ve probably watched an anime based on a manga by Rumiko Takahashi, probably Inuyasha. She’s the grand old dame of Japanese comic books (manga to us otaku), and easily the most famous manga-ka outside of Japan.

Rumiko’s creations are so popular in so many countries that she’s one of the wealthiest women in Japan. Why, you ask? Let’s look at her works.

A more full account can be found here from which I liberally cribbed this post.

Urusei Yatsura

Rumiko was just another struggling wanna-be until 1979 when she came out with her first big hit, Urusei Yatsura. The love comedy of a clutzy and un-serious high school student, Ataru Moroboshi, and a literally-shocking alien girl, Lum (right) who loved Ataru with all her heart even though he was more interested in other girls. This is the first Rumiko trademark: strong contrasts. In this case, Lum is totally in love with Ataru who doesn’t want to commit. Lum is insanely jealous and Ataru is definitely not faithful which leads to much hilarity. This is the kind of extreme pairings that would become famous as a Takahashi trademark.

Maison Ikkoku

In the early 1980s, she turned to a somewhat more conventional love story in Maison Ikkoku. Easily my favorite of her series (because it has a real and satisfying ending, more about that later). Godai Yusaka is a hapless, screw-up of a college student living in a run-down boarding house (the namesake of the manga & anime) when the new manager shows up, Kyoko Otonashi. Godai falls hopelessly in love with her and for the first time, he focuses on winning her heart against the fierce competition of Shun Mitaka. The handsome, rich tennis instructor who really is everything Godai isn’t. Who will win this romantic show down? And will Godai harpy neighbours ever stop interfering? This series is so popular that even to this day it sells well around the world and this year, 2007, Japan is going to have a live action Maison Ikkoku TV series. That’s pretty popular.

I mentioned something about endings. Rumiko isn’t known for them. In fact, her usual modus operandi is to suck at them. Urusei Yatsura’s ending was so unsatisfying that it left many fans ticked off. Her “short story” One-pound Gospel, about a boxer and a nun, was started in 1988 then went into hiatus until 2007 when the final chapters were released. Inuyasha is her longest running series, but will we ever see the end in our life times? I’ve often joked that if the series ever ends, it’ll be something I can watch with the grand-kids (I’m 35, single and no-kids ).

Ranma 1/2

Which brings me to her next most famous series, Ranma 1/2. How do I describe this? A young martial artist and his father go to China to train him to become the best martial artist in the world. Except they both fell into cursed hot springs in China. The father, Saotome Ranma, fell into the Drowned Panda Bear Springs and now turns into a Panda Bear when doused with cold water. Of course hot water returns him to normal, but his poor son, Ranma.

You see, he fell into the Drowned Girl Spring and when splashed with cold water turns into a girl (right). Which leads to the misadventures with girls and boys pursuing him, and deadly rivals who also have problems. The anime ran for quite some time, and the manga finished a few years ago in Japan, and only recently in North America. And in typical Rumiko fashion, it was a non-ending with nothing resolved and no happy ending for the couple. Aaaaaaaargh!!!!

Short Stories

When she was not finishing her running series, she created the manga equivalent of short stories in Shonen Sunday, the magazine that published all her major works. They were ignored by most people except for a few die-hard fans. There are available in trade paperback form, but they aren’t super popular. Then a few years ago they got turned into an anime. They’re pretty conventional domestic stories, but I find them well-written and satisfying. I do recommend them.

Mermaid Forest

Another set of self-contained stories were the haunting Mermaid Forest stories. Only partially connected with each other, it explores questions of mermaids, mortality and morality. Definitely darker and very serious — no comedy or humor in them at all.

Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale

This is her longest running series, and unusually darker for her. Death, violence and suffering during the Warring-States Period of Japan, it’s also infused with Asian mythology and tragic love stories. Kagome Higurashi, a high-school girl from our time, lives in an ancient family temple in the suburbs of Tokyo. One morning, she is abducted by a demon that bursts from a sealed well on the property and is dragged back in time to the warring-states period. There she finds Inuyasha, a half-demon sealed to a tree 50 years earlier by his lover Kikyo. Kagome releases him and Inuyasha saves her from the demon which was after the Shikon Jewel hidden inside Kagome. Then it gets complicated.

Inuyasha is the only soap-opera I can recall liking. It’s very much a tragic love triangle between Kagome, Inuyasha and the resurrected Kikyo. Add to that is Naraku who has some connection with Kikyo and Inuyasha and has it in for them. There’s also the love story between the lecherous Buddhist monk, Miroku, and the demon slayer, Sango, who did I mention is violently jealous? (which is a bit of deja vu for Takahashi fans).

The anime ended, but the manga is still going strong in Japan with no signs of it ending. But curiously, there doesn’t seem to be any new works from Rumiko either. Could this be her swan song manga? One can only hope she’ll give Inuyasha a proper ending rather than making a whole new generation of fans angry.

So Rome finally ended. Controversy and all.

I got to admit, I did like this series. Normally I get annoyed at historical inaccuracies, but Rome’s inaccuracies were blatant but trying to be authentic inaccuracies, if that makes sense.

The producers have openly admitted they weren’t trying to create a super-faithful history documentary. They were making Entertainment based upon history, like Shakespeare did numerous times. I still felt they mostly got the gist of the history while ignoring all the details (How many people care that Pompey was killed by two assassins instead of one?)

It was a fun ride through that tumultuous period from Julius Cesar to Octavian, later the Emperor Augustus. Using the everyman characters of Pullo and Veranus, the show did a good job of drawing us into the life of Ancient Rome (which was well documented by writers in Rome). Following their arc through to their conclusions was very satisfying, especially for Pullo.

Also, the portrayals of the really famous historical characters were pretty much in-line with their historical descriptions with the exception of the Roman women, of which precious little is recorded. And the main events were covered. That’s better than Braveheart.

Haibane Renmei is a pretty unusual anime in many ways, but the biggest difference is the themes. No guns, battles or sorcery. Just a gently story about girls with wings, called haibane, living in a town surrounded by a wall they cannot even touch, let alone pass through. The series begins with the “birth” of a new girl, Rakka, at the Old Home: an all-girls dormitory for haibane. It then follows her development and relationship with the oldest haibane there, Reki.

Created by famous character designer, Yoshitoshi ABe, the anime is based on his dōjinshi of the same name. This marks his writing and directing debut. And boy does he knock one out of the park. He cares deeply about the characters and their setting giving us details like how the girls get their halo to the everyday banality of their lives in this dream-like town.

But the story does get serious as we find out that the haibane can graduate from the town and go beyond the wall, a day called The Day of Flight. The mystery is why some stay behind while others continue their journey, and specifically why Rakka and Reki’s wings start turning black and why Reki has never had her Day of Flight.

So many themes run through the series. The sense of compassion and love the characters have for each other, even the stern elders who run the town. The fear of facing the unknown both without, like the wall, and within, like the sin that darkens a haibane’s wings. The power of love to heal a broken soul.

Haibane Renmei is such a good anime that I’ve recommended it to people who hate anime. So far, they’ve come back impressed. It has a mature story telling that North America seems to have abandoned in favor of avante garde or the banal. I can only hope ABe finds some more inspiration to give us new series like this.

Links:

• Geneon’s Haibane Renmei site
• Yoshitoshi ABe’s sites:
  • Official Site
  • Blog

Mushishi is a beautifully drawn, if somewhat dry, anime with some interesting ideas. It’s being turned into a live-action movie starring Jo Odagiri. The trailer is up and it looks like they might have capture the impressionistic look of the anime:

http://www.mushishi-movie.jp/trailer/trailer.html

A fan-made music video shows the art work from the anime.