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| The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the best of the three Reel Anime releases I've seen thus far.
A reasonably thought-provoking story of time travel on a personal scale that in many ways recalls Groundhog Day, with engaging characters and a gentle romance.
As with The Vision of Escaflowne, the heart of this movie is about personal responsibility and maturity. As such it is well grounded in the characters and this provides the strength of the movie. Recommended.
EDIT: Added link to a spoilery wikipedia page. Turns out to be something of a franchise/sequel with the implication that one of the supporting characters in this film is the main character from the original. | |
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| Batman: Gotham Knight is a compilation of several shorts from three anime studios that is apparently set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The standard of the individual shorts is generally high, and I think I liked the first segment Have I got a story for you the best, but overall doesn't really work as a movie. There are recurring characters (other than Batman), with recurring voices, and a degree of connection but not enough to form an actual plot. Worth seeing but not spectacular. | |
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| I suppose it was overdue but Appleseed Ex Machina is a CGI riff on the zombie film.
And although visually impressive in places it is a deeply flawed film.
When you consider that the original heart of the Appleseed manga was deeply human characters (even, or especially, Briareos) the CGI becomes part of the problem - the features are so close to human that the often less than human movements of the characters becomes alien and repelling. This is particularly a problem with Deunan Knute in several scenes, but several characters from the manga ended up losing their selves in the CGI. Two of the most convincing characters were (I think) inventions for this movie which isn't a particularly good sign.
Add in a story that frankly isn't all that clever or original and you end up with something that is no more than OK. I bought the original OAV recently, I suspect that on a rewatch I'll be rating it somewhat higher than that. | |
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| Had a very pleasant ride with Patrick yesterday, followed by an OK game of the WWII variant of Wings of War.
Granted that it may be unfair to dismiss this variant after only one game but it just didn't seem to work as well. I think that both of us definitely prefer the WWI variant and I'm not all that likely to buy more of the WWII version. | |
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| For those of my friends list with a serious interest in children's literature, I bring you Magpies!I readily admit that this plug is a shameless example of nepotism but hey it really is a good magazine and one of the longer running magazines in the area. So go and make with the clicky already. | |
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| I've signed up for the forum attached to John Scalzi's Whatever blog and it has a discussion of the (un)Intelligent Design movie Expelled. The New York Times review is one of the funniest things I've read in a long while if only for the rating notice at the end: "Expelled” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has smoking guns and drunken logic."
If this thing should ever get released here, I'm tempted to review it as a comedy. Of errors if nothing else. :) | |
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| Not riding to work feels odd. Quite liked Empire of Ivory (the latest in the Temeraire series), just starting in on Scalzi's The Android's Dream with its very P K Dick tribute cover. | |
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| Musical junkie that I am I really wanted to enjoy this but I found it to be more impressive than enjoyable.
Certainly the staging, the costuming, the lighting were superb in that inimitable and undefinable Tim Burton style. I enjoyed the performances of the cast, the songs were appropriate if not particularly memorable.
But...something didn't quite work for me. I don't know if it was the subject matter or something else but I don't particularly want to see this again. Nor, unlike Rent, am I particularly interested in seeing a live performance. | |
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| The Greenspeed Anura is the first delta (ie two wheels back) trike from Greenspeed. As with my previous review of the WizWheels TerraTrike Cruiser most of the comparisons will be made to my tadpole (ie two wheels front) Greenspeed GT5 because that is what I spend most of my time on.
I really should make one disclaimer: I'm not the target market for the Anura as I'm too much of a go-karting hoon so bear that in mind as you read on.
( LOTS More. With pictures... )
Summary
For a first version the Anura is an impressive debut from Greenspeed and would make an ideal touring/cruising trike. The biggest criticisms I have are the lack of accessories (largely as a result of it being a V1.0 release) and the fact that it isn't really for me. But don't let that stop YOU! | |
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| Just before Christmas I bought a new set of pedals that would enable me to ride safely in normal shoes whenever I needed or wanted to. As mentioned previously I needed to salvage the toe clips from my first set of pedals before upgrading from the second set to the third set just bought. I've just done the upgrade and there are a couple of images behind the cut. ( Of clips and cleats... ) I also removed the fairing for summer today - it had been bouncing around a bit and the mounting on the boom didn't look right anyway. The rubber that kept the metal clear of the boom had slipped so I've got some nasty scratches in my beautiful red powdercoat. Sniff. Boo! :( Michael from Fuse Recumbents was gave me a hand with the pedals (I don't have a thin enough wrench to get at the cranks) and he'll bring some touchup paint next week. Yay! Michael was here to drop off the frog, er, Anura that I'll be reviewing in detail over the coming week. As a teaser there's an image of my GT5 and the Anura after the cut. ( Anura and tadpole side by side... ) | |
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| I've raved about ARIA before. In fact I've just updated my review slightly (longish, mild spoilers). And now I have good news and bad news. Good news: According to the wikipedia page the third season (ARIA the ORIGINATION) will begin broadcasting in Japan in a couple of days. Yay! Bad news: I can't seem to find any (legitimate) commercial releases of any of the seasons or the OVA. I really want to buy this one, preferably from a legitimate Australian licensee, failing that an American licensee. Grumble. EDIT 6/1/08: For a much better review of the manga (and much of it still applicable to the anime) check out this article from The Comics Journal. | |
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| Back in November 2006 when I was soliciting requests for anime reviews*, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) angriest asked about Tezuka Osamu's Legend of the Forest. At the time I didn't have it, and it wasn't available. However Madman have just released Tezuka: The Experimental Films which includes Legend of the Forest (among many other things). I have it, and I'll be reviewing it in due course. :) *BTW the offer is still open (read the original post for details). | |
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| Does anyone remember this 100 Days post by dalekboy? Its about the evils of DVD marketing, in particular versions and extras. Well I've just encountered a nasty example of the breed, one sure to infuriate angriest and any other West Wing fans reading this. I was always slightly irritated by the fact that the West Wing DVDs that I was borrowing didn't have any extras at all. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. I just bought the complete box which contains a double disc of extras, a printed script of the pilot and a little episode guide booklet so you can look up the synopsis of an episode without removing the first or last disc of a season from its case. If I'd bought the individual seasons and then discovered this... Oh, and I just saw a poster for a live action Disney movie ( Enchanted I think) featuring a CGI furry mascot who no doubt will wisecrack all through the movie just like the ones in the animated movies. My immediate reaction? At last the real reason for Disney buying Pixar is revealed! | |
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| It gets better as it goes along. Much better.
The question is whether it can sustain the improvement through to a good ending. | |
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| Since I'm currently on something of a CLAMP binge I bought the Chobits collection recently. After eight episodes (including one travesty that I fast forwarded through), it is beginning to show some interesting signs. But otherwise my verdict thus far is "Oh dear". I'll post a fuller review once I've finished the series, hopefully it will be worth the effort. | |
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| First the bad: I have officially lost interest in Bionic Woman. Frankly, I was about to watch it tonight and just couldn't be bothered. Maybe someone I know will buy it and I'll borrow it later to watch without ads but I'm not holding my breath. In many ways Bionic Woman is one of those 80percenters (to borrow a phrase I picked up from rdmasters IIRC) that could have been great and are frustrating when they miss the mark. The kawaii: So I watched Card Captor Sakura instead. And I would just like to state for the record that Tomoyo-chan is disturbing... :) The good: Heroes. It has taken a while this season, and I was beginning to wonder if Heroes was going to be a one series wonder but tonight's episode nailed it. Looking forward to next week. | |
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| OK, so we've seen the third episode of 2nd season Heroes and I now have a possible explanation for the aspects of the 1st season that I've ranted about previously. | |
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| There are directors with a certain indelible stamp, a signature if you will, that marks their films. Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers is one of those directors - "A film by Satoshi Kon" should always be read as "This film will mess with your head". Paprika is no exception.
When I saw it tonight I simply enjoyed the ride and let it wash over me. Visually spectacular, and exceptionally well voiced in the leads by Megumi Hayashibara, Paprika is an easy film to enjoy but not so easy to understand. Maybe I'll make some sense of it on a rewatch later. - Tags:anime, reviews
- Location:Canberra
- Mood:contemplative
 - Music:The Bangles - Where Were You When I Needed You
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| Despite the interesting start to the day, today at work was fairly productive so I thought that the fun was over.
Little did I know - there was a brief power cut this evening followed by my continued re-watching of series 1 of Heroes. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. :) | |
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