The Wind Rises aka Kaze Tachinu is the latest anime offering from Studio Ghibli and will be getting an Oscar-qualifying run later this year. It’s the latest from acclaimed Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao (My Friend Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) and, most likely, his final work as he’s announced that he’s retiring.
The film is a fictionalized account of one Jiro Horikoshi. It’s a decades-long retelling of Jiro’s early life as a boy through his post-war life. Those who know their history will recognize the name of Jiro Horikoshi as one of the engineers responsible for the development of the legendary WWII fighter most commonly-known by the name given to it by the Allies during the war, The Zero.
While all of Miyazaki’s films have always have had the mature element in addition to the whimsical nature of the story he’s telling in his anime it look like The Wind Rises may just be Miyazaki’s most mature offering to date.
The Wind Rises has been making the film festival rounds of late and hopefully gets limited release dates announced before year’s end.
Sometimes a really bad film just does enough to push my buttons to actually make me like it. One such film was 2009’s scifi=thriller Pandorum.
The film was one of those that had some hype behind it prior to the film’s release. It had a nice marketing angle which included some very disturbing biomechanical imagery that harkened back to classic H.R. Giger artwork from both Alien and Dune. The film even had an interesting premise which was about a mental affliction caused by long exposure to space travel called “Pandorum”.
When the film finally came out to say that it bombed would be quite an understatement. While the ideas behind the film were interesting enough the overall execution of said ideas were haphazard at best and unimaginative at it’s worst. There’s nothing worst than a B-movie trying to stand out from the dregs and failing because it’s dull and boring. Yet, despite all that I’ve been fascinated by Pandorum ever since I’ve caught it on video.
German director Christian Alvart might be lacking some style in his direction of the film, but the cast itself manages to work their damnedest to make the film work. Ben Foster does his usual twitching performance where we don’t know if he’s about to go psycho on everyone around him or just curl up in the corner and start sobbing like a newborn. Dennis Quaid chews the scenery so much in every scene he’s in that his work in the film almost comes off as performance art.
Even the idea that people who were gentically-enhanced to adapt and evolve to their surroundings was a new one. The film even goes further by making the foundation of rapid evolution come from the ship itself. All the cannibalism involved just added that grindhouse touch to the proceedings.
The one thing that really brings me back to watching this film as one of my many guilty pleasure’s was this was the first film that introduced the world to Antje Traue. She’s better known as one of the few good things to come out of Man of Steel. Even in this first feature film for Antje Traue we already see examples of how much a badass she can be. It’s a shame that the film around her wasn’t better.
Pandorum never improves with each repeat viewing, but it doesn’t get worst either. It just straddles that fine line where one or two things changed for the better would’ve made it a good film. But for the life of me I have no idea why I like it and continue to watch it. Sometimes even bad films will push enough of the requisite buttons for people to like it and this film certainly pushed the right ones from me.
Here we have another “AMV of the Day” installment starring those cast of characters from the anime series Nichijou.
The previous AMV showed that the series Nichijou can pretty much fit any type of music. Want to make a video of the series using a heavy metal song? Not a problem. Classical music? Doable and perfect, really. Now we have a classic of Hollywood film score being used to make a Nichijou video and despite the video not really making any sense whatsoever it does fall in line with the series’ and it’s irreverent and over-the-top nature.
The moment I watched “Life Is Fantastic” by Iren S.S. I couldn’t stop whistling to the video and it took me a shake of a lamb’s tail before I figured out that the song used was from The Sting. The video itself is a prime example of how one can sync up the images in the video with specific musical cues to make it come off spectacular. Special effects are not the only tools that makes an AMV great to watch. Sometimes an editor with a keen eye for visuals and an ear for music can combine the two skills to make a near-perfect AMV.
Now, I must return to whistling this tune that I can’t get out of my head.
Anime:Nichijou
Song:“Easy Winners” by Scott Joplin and Marvin Hamlisch
Lisa Marie posted earlier that 2013 was the Year of Franco. She may just be right since there’s another film coming out this year that has him starring.
Homefront has James Franco going mano y mano with another name who seems to be in at least a couple films every year for the past ten years. It’s Statham vs. Franco and while this awkward yet awesome match-up looks like it should be something that went Direct-to-Video there’s a weird vibe around the trailer that looks like it’s the better remake of Peckinpan’s Straw Dogs. We even have Kate Bosworth all up in this film though she’s definitely looking like she may have went a tad bit too method in portraying a meth-head mother.
The cast alone tells me that I must see this when it comes out: Statham, Franco, Bosworth, Winona Ryder, Clancy Brown, Vince D’Onofrio, Frank Grillo and Mischa Barton. One could almost see “guilty pleasure” waving in the background.
So, if there’s nothing else to say about Homefront other than Statham going all Transporter on a meth-dealing biker gang from the bayou it’s the fact that this film will be Hollywood’s birthday gift to me when it comes out on November 27, 2013. Just in time for my birthday.
So, we have Keanu Reeves playing against type in Man of Tai Chi now we have another Keanu extravaganza where he returns to the role he continues to be cast in. The role of the reluctant hero who also happens to be the only one who can save everyone.
47 Ronin, I will have to assume, is probably very loosely-based on the 18th-century real-life account of the forty-seven ronin (masterless samurai) who took on the rival lord of their former lord and master. Their legend grew upon the success of their mission when they presented themselves to the Shogun and were given the chance to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) to keep their honor instead of being executed like criminals for the murder of the rival lord.
This story continues to remain a popular one in Japan and for those in the West who know of it. The film looks to take the basic premise but adapt the story in a more fantasy-setting that makes this 47 Ronin look more like a live-action anime than a traditional jidaigeki film like the recent 13 Assassins. This film marks one of the first Western Chushingura (fictional accounts of the forty-seven ronin event).
47 Ronin is directed by Carl Erik Rinsch and is set for a Christmas 2013 release date.
I think Keanu Reeves has always had it in him to play a bad guy. I think playing a villain suits him better than playing a hero. The latter requires charisma and presence and that’s something that Keanu will never be mistaken for having. Now as a villain he can go all-out and channel his inner-Nicolas Cage.
Man of Tai Chi will be the test to see if he can pull off being a film’s heel. It helps that this film also comes as his directorial debut. Looking like a much more polished, but even more kick-ass take on the Bloodsport-theme, Man of Tai Chi is one film later this year that I’ve been highly-anticipating. It speaks to my inner martial-artist and it’s been awhile since we’ve had a film where it looks like the fighting is not all about wire work.
The film stars Keanu Reeves as the villain Donaka Mark with the hero role going to his stuntman friend and owner of a badass name, Tiger Chen.
Man of Tai Chi has already premiered at both the Beijing and Cannes Film Festivals and should make it’s North American premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Here’s to hoping it gets a wide release before the end of 2013.
Have I mentioned just how much I love the anime series Nichijou? If I haven’t then this latest “Scenes I Love” should provide a fine example why this anime series has pretty much captured my otaku-heart and has now made it into my top 10 best things I’ve ever enjoyed watching.
It’s well-known amongst fans of anime that Nichijou is just so random an anime series. While it might confuse the uninitiated for the most part everyone who watches anime just rolls with it. I love this particular scene involving two of the show’s leads in Mio and Yuuko because of just how it escalates so quickly from a misunderstanding into a full-blown mutual assured destructions conflict in so very little time.
This scene illustrates how the series takes very normal and common situations that happens in every high school kids life and just ramps it up past 11. I know that I’ve had arguments and fights about something so innocuous as getting the wrong lunch. Yet, despite the over-the-top nature of the scene and how hilarious each lead takes their argument to the nth-degree it ends in a way that makes one feel good about things.
Yoshitaka Amano, born 1952 in Shizuka, Japan, is one of Japan’s most-renowned artists and illustrators. He also began his career as a character designer for early anime shows like Speed Racer, Gatchaman and Tekkaman. He would continue to build on his portfolio of unique character designs for anime, video game franchises and Japanese pop culture art.
Amano-san has pointed out Western artists such as comic book artist Neal Adams as an inspiration in his own style which when combined with his knowledge and appreciation of the classic Japanese hard woodblock printing known as Ukiyo-e would lead to one of the most unique character styles in mainstream pop-culture.
Yet, Amano-san will forever be known for and continues to be popular for his work in helping design the characters for the the video game rpg franchise known the world over as Final Fantasy.
This song is one of my favorite of 2013 and it helped make this summer’s World War Z more entertaining than what many was predicting. This was a film that was considered dead on arrival before it was even out, but it persevered and the decision to use “Isolated System” by Muse as the film’s opening theme was genius.
This video is an excellent piano cover by YouTube user xSymbiose. As someone who has had some piano training I can assure doubters that this cover was and is authentic and not a well-done fake. It’s easy enough to overlay the original song over a video and try to sync-up as perfectly as possible the song with the piano playing. This time around this wasn’t the case.
The playing by xSymbiose is not just precise but almost matches the original song’s tempo. There’s really only a few seconds difference between this cover and the original song’s running time.
Everytime I see piano covers executed nigh-perfectly as this one makes me wish I had continued with my piano lessons. For now I will just live vicariously through those whose skills far surpasses my own. I have our very own Leonard Wilson to thank for finding this little gem.
Anime comes in many varying degrees of flavor, so to speak. On one extreme are some of the more dramatic and serious offerings such as Grave of the Fireflies and original films from Miyazaki and others from Studio Ghibli. On the other side of the equation would be what some would call disposable entertainment which could range from fantasy, horror, mecha to the ever-popular mahou shoujo (aka Magical Girl) anime.
Somewhere in-between these two extremes is where some surprising anime series and films tend to pop out of nowhere to become fan-favorites in the industry. One such series is the underrated “slice-of-life” anime simply called Nichijō. The title has a literal translation of “Regular Life” and the show takes that concept of the regular lives of high school girls and adds a dose of the irreverent and the ridiculous to help highlight some of the life lessons that actually resonate beneath the show’s more over-the-top trappings.
That reason alone should be why this is one anime that people should really be watching.
Yet, the show brings more to the table than just funny and entertaining little stories. The main characters of the show are also well-written and go beyond the usual one-dimensional stereotypes of most anime. We have Aioi Yuko who one would consider as the lead girl of the show. One would think that she would be the so-called “straight man” in a show full of eccentric characters, but she herself brings her own quirks to the proceedings. These character quirks comes out more clearly when she deals with her friend Mio who, at first, comes off as the otaku of the show, but actually seems more like your typical high school girl with a talent for art. Though her obsession at drawing yaoi and trying to keep it secret makes for some of the more hilarious scenes on the show.
Even the more over-the-top characters on the show come off as more fully developed than some of the live-action “high school” shows in the west. There’s Hakase, the 8-year old genius girl who happens to have Nano, a life-life android she herself created, taking care of her and acting more like her mother than as an automaton. This pairing makes for my favorite on the show which also includes their back cat Mr. Sakamoto who also happens to talk due to the red scarf that acts like a translator that Hakase invented.
The series ended after 26-episodes and no more were ordered afterwards due to some very low sales of the subsequent video. It’s a shame since the series has since gained quite the following. Nichijō is a series that’s been able to combine the more serious and well-meaning life-lesson storytelling of your typical high school shows with the manic and ridiculous nature that some anime tend to have to help visualize particular reactions and emotions (in reality this show makes over-the-top seem like a tame description). The show has so many classic scenes that watching it becomes almost an exercise in abstract comedy.
So, if you ever come across an anime called Nichijō I recommend you check it out. You won’t be disappointed. Below is just one such scene where a normal, everyday event turns into the surreal.
The Wind Rises aka Kaze Tachinu is the latest anime offering from Studio Ghibli and will be getting an Oscar-qualifying run later this year. It’s the latest from acclaimed Japanese director Miyazaki Hayao (My Friend Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) and, most likely, his final work as he’s announced that he’s retiring.
Through the Shattered Lens 