The fourth and final One Piece-themed “AMV of the Day” doesn’t come courtesy of AMV creator PixelCreekAMVs, but instead from Regiosk8 and is the best of the four.
“This Is War” takes it’s title from the 30 Seconds to Mars song of the same title. I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of this group, but for some reason this song of their’s continue to be a favorite amongst amv creators especially when trying to convey and video’s epic nature. The Marineford War story-arc in One Piece definitely fills the criteria of being quite epic. One must consider the fact that this anime was and still is epic on it’s right, but this story-arc took it to a new level. It’s the arc which added a major level of seriousness to everyone’s fun as it’s creator, Oda Eiichiro, decided to kill off several main characters (fan favorites) and do so in a way that didn’t leave no question as to their final moments (American comic book writers could learn a thing or two about how to kill off characters and keeping them dead from manga writers).
I’m sure that 30 Seconds to Mars’ “This Is War” will be make another appearance in other amv’s but for now this one looks to be the best. Great job by Regiosk8 on the video and a nice tribute to one Edward “Whitebeard” Newgate to end the video.
“Throughout the Battle of Marineford alone Whitebeard had received 267 sword wounds, 152 gunshot wounds and 46 wounds from cannonballs- adding up to a total of 465 injuries upon his time of death. Despite this, there was not a single scar on Whitebeard’s back showing cowardice.”
This latest “AMV of the Day” mark the third entry which has the Marineford War story-arc in the One Piece anime series as the basis for the video.
“Move Along” is also the third AMV I’ve chosen from PixelCreekAMVs who has done a remarkable job of taking scenes from this epic One Piece story-arc. The video takes it’s name from the song used which happened to be by The All-American Rejects. This video once again highlights what has made One Piece such a huge fan favorite. It’s all about non-stop action with bits of comedy or comedy with bits of action. This is a series that goes full-bore and really not subtle about it’s storytelling on the surface.
I’ve got one more video in this One Piece-themed set but this penultimate choice til the last one has become a favorite of mine.
Just a little under a year ago I had chosen a particular favorite song as the latest “Song of the Day”. This song was Clint Mansell’s “Together We Will Live Forever”which was part of his exceptional film score for Darren Aronofsky’s 2006 scifi love story, The Fountain. I’ve decided to finally bookend that choice by choosing what has to be the best song in that film’s soundtrack and one of the best piece of film score ever composed: Mansell’s “Death Is the Road to Awe”.
While I’ve given Mansell with the final credit for the creation of this epic song (not just in tone and execution but in length), he had help from frequent collaborator Kronos Quartet and Scottish post-rock band Mogwai. “Death Is the Road to Awe” takes the entirety of Mansell’s film scoring for The Fountain and distills them into a mixture of classical, post-rock and ambient dissonance which seems to all work so well together despite their very differing musical styles.
The Fountain was (still is) a film which brings out either love and admiration for it or utter hate for what some think was a pretentious, jumbled mess. Whether one loved or hated the film (rarely is there one who falls in the middle in their reaction to this film) the reaction most have had for the soundtrack has been mostly positive. I, for one, truly believe it to be one of the greatest film scores ever composed for any film. This song is the ultimate culmination of Mansell’s work for this film and just shows that classical, rock and electronic could co-exist side-by-side to create something truly unique and one-of-a-kind.
One thing I like about genre films is the fact that, whether they’re good or bad, they mostly accomplish the part about entertaining it’s audience. For the good to great ones they don’t just entertain but raise the genre to new heights. For the bad ones they seem to entertain in unexpected ways. How often have one watched a bad genre film, realize it’s bad and still just roll with it, laughing at it becoming part of it’s appeal. We wouldn’t have gotten years and years of Rifftrax and MST3K without enjoying the badness of awful genre films. Then there are genre films which takes the very well-worn tropes of the genre. The very things we as an audience groan and snicker at and manages to turn it into a love-letter to the very thing they’re making fun of.
The horror-comedy Tucker & Dale vs. Evil takes the backwoods horror which has been a major staple of the slasher subgenre for over a quarter-century and tips it on it’s head to create a horror comedy that never runs out of laughs and still manages to show cringe-inducing death scenes. It stars Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine in the roles of Tucker and Dale. We have two well-meaning “hillbillies” from the backwoods of West Virginia on their way to Tucker’s recently bought “fixer-upper” of a vacation home who come across a group of obnoxious college kids looking to spend the weekend on the shore of the very lake our two intrepid heroes’ vacation also sits off of. Through some misunderstanding between the very sweet-natured Dale who tries to befriend one of the pretty college girls in the group we see the beginning of events that will see death and mayhem visited upon both groups throughout the film.
We get the mandatory story telling us about how twenty years ago during Memorial Day a group of similar college kids were massacred by a couple of hillbillies on the very shores of the lake with only one survivor to tell the tale. This tale becomes the reason why the college kids start trying to “defend” themselves from Tucker and Dale who they thought kidnapped one of the girls in their group when in fact they had just rescued her from drowning. One by one each college kid dies in horrible fashion in their attempt to take on the oblivious Tucker and Dale who begin to think the group were on a suicide pact and means to take them down as well.
The film really does a great job of playing on the well-worn conventions of slasher films and making each such scenario play out in a way that if someone caught the scene a few seconds after it had already started they would think Tucker and Dale were trying to kill these kids. Each kill have just enough gore to satisfy horror fans so used to slasher films, but also funny enough every cringe was followed up by laughs.
One thing the film also had going for it was the chemistry between Tudyk and Labine as Tucker and Dale. They play off each other quite naturally that it’s not a stretch to believe these two were truly life-long friends who would brave the rush of misguided college kids to save each other. Even the college girl with the heart of gold, Allie (played by Katrina Bowden), adds to the film’s good-natured fun as she tries to explain to her friends that everything which has been going on (all the death and destruction) was all just a misunderstanding. Another thing which helps make the two leads in the film quite sympathetic has to be how obnoxious the kids really were who look down on the so-called “mountain folk” of the region because of their appearance thus their lack of education.
Eli Craig took three years to make Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, but the end result was all worth the wait. The film follows in the great traditions of horror-comedies of the past by never winking cynically at the audience at how smart it is, but letting the basic premise of the story play out as simply as possible. It helps to have a great duo in Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine in the roles of the Tucker and Dale. This film may not make many critics running to proclaim it as a milestone in the genre but it does succeed in entertaining it’s audience and just ending up being one hilarious 90 minutes of campy horror.
“…being a samurai is a burden.” – Shimada Shinzaemon
Miike Takashi (Takashi Miike to those in the West) has always been one of my favorite filmmakers and I consider him one of the most unique directors working. To say that he has an extensive body of work would be an understatement. This is a man who is quite at home at releasing 2-3 films a year. He has dabbled in all sorts of genres from drama, thrillers, horror, scifi, musicals and even children’s stories. Those who discovered him in the West mostly remember him for his more extreme films such as Audition, Ichi the Killer and his Dead or Alive epic. He’s taken extreme film-making to some unpredictable plac. While some of his films never work one could never say that they were ever boring or uninteresting.
In 2010, Miike released what I can only say is one of his best films to date with his remake of Tengan Daisuke’s 1963 film of the same name. 13 Assassins is Miike’s take on the classic jidaigeki (Japanese Edo period pieces…think of it as similar in idea to Merchant-Ivory period pieces) which incudes such great films as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Rashomon and Yojimbo to name a few. This film also shares some similarities to the “men on a mission” war films which were quite popular during the early 60’s which included one of my other top action films in The Dirty Dozen.
The film is loosely based on some historical characters from the Tokugawa Shogunate era mainly that of Lord Naritsugu of the Akashi clan. In this film he’s portrayed as a sadistic young noble whose familial ties to the ruling Shogun allows him to kill and rape both commoners and nobles alike with impunity. When a high government official fears for the government and the country should Naritsugo ever ascends to a higher position in the Shogunate he takes it upon himself to hire a trusted friend and veteran samurai, Shinzaemon (Kōji Yakusho), to plan and pull off the assassination of Lord Naritsugo.
From this moment on the film takes it’s time in introducing the men who would form the film’s title. It doesn’t linger or take too long with each man, but we learn enough of these 13 assassins to form some sort of attachment to each and everyone that the loss of each man, once the battle begins between Shinzaemon’s assassins and Naritsugu’s 200 bodyguards, has emotional impact and meaning. Even knowing that this mission ultimately becomes a suicide task still doesn’t stop the surprise when one of these men falls to the blades of their enemies.
The assassins themselves were quite a diverse group of characters that could’ve been lifted off your typical “men on a mission” film. We have the goofballs with the talent for explosives, younger samurai eager to prove themselves in battle and to their masters, veteran samurai looking to do one more last job before they retire from the life right up to the last-minute addition of a fool whose unique skill sets becomes integral to the missions success.
13 Assassins begins the final 45 minutes of its running time with a non-stop battle which rivals anything we’ve seen put out by Hollywood in the past ten years. Unlike the sturm und drang actionfests from Michael Bay and those who seem to emulate his style of action film-making, Miike takes a much more restrained approach to the proceedings. This is not to say that the action in this film was boring. He allows the audience to know exactly what’s going on with long takes and minimal amount of edits. I don’t think he ever used too many quick cuts to help simulate chaos during the fight. Instead he lets the practical stunt choreography and the inventive set design of the village turned killing field to dictate the flow of the action. It’s quite interesting to note how a filmmaker such as Miike whose reputation in the West has been built on his style of extreme visuals and imagery on film would be quite adept at such a thing as traditional filmmaking that eschews heavy-usage of CGI, quick-cut editing and unnecessary montages to help propel not just the action but the film’s narrative.
Again, unlike the Bay-fest the West has been flooded with the last decade or so this film also has as one of it’s strength’s the story all the action revolves around. The story itself is quite simple when one really boils it down to it’s most basic premise. Evil lord sows chaos around the countryside and a group of honor-bound fighting men band together for one reason or another to stop this evil. It’s a story as old as Beowulf and as recent as 2010’s trio of such films with The Losers, The A-Team and the Expendables. What this film does with it’s characters which helps it stand out from that trio is how well Miike was able to balance not just the action with the story but how to make each character in the film seem unique despite being so stereotypical of such films at first glance.
The acting by the ensemble cast (a who’s-who of performers in Japanese, but mostly unknown to Western audiences) adds just the right mix of melancholy and dark humor not to mention some rock star-like work from it’s lead antagonist. Gorô Inagaki (himself not just a talented actor but one of Japan’s more popular pop star singers) as Lord Naritsugu brings energy as the evil lord to every scene he’s in not because of being so over-the-top but the opposite. He plays this villain as a noble bored with the peaceful days enjoyed by everyone and could only enjoy what life has to offer when he brings chaos to the proceedings. The fact that this involves him raping the women of a fellow noble and cutting off the limbs of a nameless young girl just shows how much out of touch he is with reality and at the same time romanticizes the age of war hundreds of years in the past. The rest of the cast does an admirable job in their own roles. To say that it was difficult to see one of them die on-screen would be an understatement.
13 Assassins was released in 2010, but really got it’s major showing in the United States in early 2011. Despite all of that and with the eclectic group of films I was fortunate enough to have seen in 2011 that made my “best of” list it would be this film that ranks as one of the best of 2011 and also one of my favorite films of recent times. Miike Takashi has shown himself to be now just a filmmaker provocateur whose reputation for shocking audiences have bee well-earned, but also cemented the true fact that he is a filmmaker (both in and out of Hollywood) who has the skills and know-how to escape being labeled as only a filmmaker of a particular genre. His restraint and decision to remake a classic film in the jidaigeki genre shows that while he hasn’t lost his panache for extreme brutality (and this film has them to satiate action and gore fans everywhere) he can also create a film using the subtle brushstrokes of traditional, old-school filmmaking. With this film he has made one of finest and cements his place in the roll call of best filmmakers of the last quarter-century.
I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Through the Shattered Lens began as a way to keep me from getting bored on Christmas Eve of 2009 and tonight marks the 2nd year anniversary of that decision. Since then The site has gained several new writers and each of them has brought a unique voice to the world of entertainment blogging. The site doesn’t make money. It’s writers are all volunteers given the free rein to write what they want and how they want to. For a site dedicated to everything entertainment it doesn’t send it’s writers to film premieres or set production visits. It is a site which embraces the notion of grindhouse and that’s what we’ve done and continued to do since it’s inception.
I’ve come to see everyone who has contributed to the site as friends and humbled that they’ve stuck around this long without complaint. We all don’t always agree on what’s written but in the end it’s the civilized manner by which we discuss and debate the things written about that I think sets the site apart from other entertainment sites.
Here’s to hoping that the next year is even more successful and, first and foremost, fun for all involved and those who have continued to visit the site since the beginning. While I don’t know what the future will bring I do know that whatever comes around the corner myself and everyone here will have fun come rain or shine. Here’s to the upcoming year and hope y’all come ’round once in awhile to see what we have up our sleeves.
Til then, just “awwww” at the cuteness that are the Mini Ika’s.
This week leading up to the Christmas weekend has surely been quite a busy one for film fans everywhere. Earlier in the week we got to see the new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises (and to a lesser extent the trailer for Wrath of the Titans). That was soon followed a day later by the first teaser trailer for Peter Jackson’s upcoming return to the world of Middle-Earth with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Now we reach the triumvirate of awesome film trailers for the week with the release of the first official trailer for Ridley Scott’s return to the film franchise which made him a household name and helped redefined sci-fi (especially of the horror variety) films.
The trailer for Prometheus looks beautiful especially when viewed on 720p/1080p HD. It still doesn’t explain just exactly what the plot of the film is, but it does show some interesting imagery which harkens back to the original Alien from 1979. We even get to see a glimpse of the pilot chair where the “space jockey” sits and the very ship itself found by Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo from the first film. Even the trailer pays major homage to the original film by slowly revealing the film’s title one section at a time.
Scott has been saying that Prometheus is not a prequel to Alien and that it’s a film that could stand on it’s own without people needing to see the films in the franchise. So far, we haven’t glimpsed any of the typical xenomorphswhich defines the franchise. Time to see if they make an appearance when the film finally comes out on June 8. 2012.
While Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises is the most anticipated summer blockbuster for this upcoming 2012 then it would be safe to say that the most anticipated film for 2012 for some would be Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
This is a film that has been years in the making and even more years in development hell as the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, The Hobbit, was entangled through many different studios. Once those entanglements were finally resolved and the film set to be put into production the film suffered more setbacks as budget and script rewrites kept things from starting. The original filmmaker picked to helm this two-part prequel, Guillermo Del Toro, had to back out after years of delays though he still remains as producer and his ideas and conceptual art and design has become the foundation for the film.
The film finally got the greenlight to start filming once Peter Jackson stopped searching for Del Toro’s replacement and took on the role as director once again. While Del Toro was a great choice I think most fans of the original trilogy were glad that Jackson decided to just take up the director’s chair once more. Who else knew the world of Middle-Earth on film better than the man who made what was called the unfilmable novel into the new millenium’s iconic film trilogy.
Like the production of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson and his geniuses at WETA have been pretty good with showing fans progress made on the films through video blogs released by Jackson himself. With just a year left to go before part one of this two-part prequel premieres we finally have the first official teaser trailer to the film and I must say that it’s great. Even from just snippets shown in the teaser one could see some of Del Toro’s more darker concepts and influence in the film’s look and tone. But then some of it also comes from Jackson himself whose early background as a filmmaker was all about dark, macabre subjects and themes.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is set for a December 14, 2012 release.
We’re now in the second AMV of my One Piece-themed anime music video min-marathon. The previous video was by PixelCreekAMVs and this second one is also by this AMV creator.
The AMV I picked from his collection of One Piece videos is titled “Party Rock” and like the previous AMV chosen it’s also one which highlights the fun, bizarre and wacky nature of Oda Eiichiro’s long-running and very popular manga and anime series. For those who might not recognize this song from LMFAO, they will probably better remember it as the song played with the dancing hip-hop hamsters and dancing robots in those Kia Soul car commercials.
I rather found this particular amv quite catchy to watch and listen to. The song is one of those party anthem songs which tend to come and go every year but combining it with One Piece just makes the song much more memorable. PixelCreekAMVs work on this video is much cleaner with a minimum amount of pre-existing credits and/or subtitles. Even if it had those I would still consider this AMV one of my current favorites.
Anime: One Piece
Song: “Party Rock” by LMFAO feat. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock
There’s nothing much else to say other than 2012 looks to be the year of The Dark Knight Rises.
2005 saw the reboot of the Batman film franchise. This first film in the new trilogy put Christopher Nolan on the map as an action filmmaker. 2008’s The Dark Knight with it being such a huge critical and, more importantly, a mega-blockbuster made Christopher Nolan a filmmaker who could do anything he wants and with whatever budget he asks for. Nolan was able to cash in some of that cred to make 2010’s Inception which was also a runaway success.
2012 is just around the corner and we have the third and final leg to Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. With the success and popularity of the two previous films to say that the hype and anticipation for this third film has reached stratospheric levels would be an understatement. This is not to say the film can’t flop, but with Nolan’s track record I am in the camp of highly doubt it.
The Dark Knight Rises is set for a July 20, 2012 release in both regular and IMAX (though not in 3D).
