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impersonaI don't really have the mental power for a post about what I've been up to (there is a lot of anxiety in Chateau le Sage mindspace now), so instead I will do a
SHIT I WATCH ON NETFLIX!
post.
Cosmos
This was pure awesome. After watching structured space shows like The Universe for so long, it was cool to watch one that was more organic, more poetic, and more leisurely. The Universe likes to impress you with threats of the Earth blowing up in a myriad of fashions - Carl Sagan's equivalent of this is a warning to humans themselves not to obliterate ourselves prematurely, which he believes we have already been doing by destroying knowledge and destroying other possibly-intelligent species, such as the whales.
My favorite parts of these episodes would be when Carl Sagan, in his calm, positive Carl Sagan way, would go off the rails to completely RAGE against the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. He does this in the first episode and the last, apparently for no reason at all, but his conversation does come full circle. And honestly, I didn't realize the Library was such a big deal until he brought it up. So while I think it was really amusing to watch him get so mad about it, it was clearly a passion point for him and ultimately enlightening.
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking
IF YOU COULDN'T TELL, I'M A WHORE FOR SPACE DOCUMENTARIES. I enjoyed this one probably the most, compared to The Universe and Cosmos. It helped that Hawking kept to topics that I really really love, specifically aliens and time travel, but I felt like he obliged in more theory and physics than the other shows did. I enjoyed the tone of the show as well. It wasn't quite as Mr. Rogers-conversational as Cosmos, but I still felt like it was Hawking talking to the audience in the same casual manner a friend might teach another about a new subject.
The third episode is twice the length of the other two episodes, which I personally thought was too much - 80 minutes is a bit too long. Still, this series is very much worth the time invested.
The Super Mario Super Show
This show is every bit as great as I remember. I know that it is technically a bad show, but there are times when I think there is so much heart put into a project that there is still joy to be found in it. I find the live action skits so ridiculously charming, especially how they were somehow able to get big name celebrities on there. WHY DOESN'T THIS SHOW EXIST TODAY :<
I hope Netflix is still around when I have children, so I can have them watch this show.
The opening theme is still the most danceable song on the planet.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Shockingly amazing. I'm not inclined to be excited about the upcoming Avengers movie at all - possibly because my childhood was dominated more by the X-Men, but also because a number of the core characters have been historically boring to me - the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America in particular.
Well, their Hulk is the funniest and most likeable incarnation since the 1980's show with Lou Ferrigno - the characterization was probably inspired by the TV show version, in fact.
This show made me like Captain America.
(Thor is still the weak link in terms of characterization, but at least his storyline is a good vehicle to keep the show moving.)
Their Tony Stark is a riot (then again, I'm inclined to love Iron Man cause I think of him as the iconic Italian-American superhero. Like Mario.) He's framed as the main character, sort of - he is the glue behind the Avengers and he puts all of his power into keeping the team together, but there is surprisingly little drama and camera-whoring on his character. I thought that they would be capitalizing more on the overwhelming success of the Iron Man movies, but the show more often than not lets him step aside to focus on the other characters as-needed.
I'm rather happy with the treatment of Janet/The Wasp. She is dealt a lousy hand in terms of superpowers, but this show does the same thing as the comics and puts her inclination towards cleverness and leadership to her advantage, which helps her keep up with the other big-boys. Hank Pym/Antman was probably my least favorite character of the main cast, but that's not saying a lot because he is still a great counterpoint to all of the other male gung-ho superheroes in the group. I'm super-pleased with the mature, matter-of-fact romance between Janet and Hank too.
BLACK PANTHER YOU ARE TOO AWESOME FOR WORDS. I am so happy that they brought him into the fold. All of the other characters are so over-the-top that it's nice to have a character who will just go in and GIT ER DONE while the others are still bickering.
The part that shocked me the most had to do with the Black Widow and Hawkeye's relationship. Without saying so explicitly, it is made very clear through body language and emotional reactions that they were involved romantically, and that Hawkeye is such a jerk at the beginning because he is still feeling all the rage of a betrayed lover. It is amazing that they slipped so much powerful sexual tension under the radar. Bravo.
Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam
This was a movie consisting of four different character-driven short stories - Superman and Captain Marvel vs. Black Adam, The Spectre, Green Arrow, and Jonah Hexx.
Two major takeaways:
1) The Superman in here is DEAD SEXY. MY GOD. I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW, I DON'T EVEN LIKE SUPES THAT MUCH. He was terribly charming and sweet too - it gave me "Lois and Clark" flashbacks hardcore. I could have watched an entire movie of this version of Superman being supportive to children and maybe playing with puppies in the park.
2) THE GREEN ARROW SHORT WAS FRIGGIN AWESOME. All of the best dialogue clearly went to him, but also his sequence was nearly non-stop combat action. I'm inclined to think that modern-era superheroes who fight with bows and arrows are lame, but Hawkeye and this Green Arrow changed my mind.
The Jonah Hexx short was a waste of time, but I rather liked the Spectre one. The Shazam! thing was very rushed, and I thought the fights with Black Adam were rather anti-climatic.
Dance in the Vampire Bund
Not a popular opinion, I imagine, but I actually liked this anime. I guess I have squick-resistence to the half-naked loli vampire queen main character flouncing around the screen. Or maybe I liked Mina's character development enough to forgive the loli-bait rampant in the series. It was a show that surprised me by being a lot darker and atmospheric than I expected, and also by being way more political than I thought as well. Mina is really characterized as a competent queen and as utterly confident and in control, even during the times she was captured and humiliated, which I thought was refreshing when they just as easily could have made her a weeping princess or something stupid.
Actually I had more of a problem with the male lead, the 'everyman' Akira. He's a regular kid turned werewolf bodyguard, with amnesia cause that's the most obvious thing to do, and with some mysterious history to Mina. It was soooooo cliche and lame and I generally found him to be a waste of space. There were a number of more interesting side characters in the series I'd much rather follow.
Unfortunately, like Claymore, this series is based on an on-going manga, so it ended kind of abruptly and very confusingly. I don't think I could tell you how it ended because it didn't make much sense to me at the time. I actually wouldn't have minded another two episodes, if just to get some explanation and closure.
Black Butler
So while I was watching Dance in the Vampire Bund, K asked me "WHY DON'T YOU WATCH SOME ANIME THAT IS ACTUALLY GOOD?"
Then she suggested Black Butler and I thought it was a joke. There was no WAY Black Butler could be good. That show was just pandering yaoi shotacon bait embraced by new anime fans who really don't know better. I've seen enough terrible Ciel cosplays to know that no good could possibly come out of this show.
...YEAH I WAS WRONG ABOUT THAT ONE.
Black Butler, more than anything else, is hilarious. Like, hysterically funny. Sometimes it's tongue-in-cheek, sometimes it's with outright gags. All of it stems from the amazing characterization that went into this show - and by far and away, the treatment of Sebastian, the demon butler, is itself worth the time spent watching the show. The voice acting in the English version was superb. The animation quality was high. The stories were okay - some episodes were far better than others, though I thought the meta-plot to the show was a bit too weird and didn't tie back to the mystery of Ciel's past and parents strongly enough.
Vandread
I fucking adored this.
I love (a) harem anime, (b) harem anime that plays on gender roles, (c) 90's anime, (d) space n' shit. THANK YOU VANDREAD FOR PROVIDING ALL OF THE ABOVE (well TECHNICALLY it came out in 2000, but the tone is 100% 90's harem anime). It won so many points because it reminded me so much of one of my favorite animes of all time, Saber Marionette J.
Vandread is about escapees from a planet of only men and pirates from a planet of only women who are forced to co-habit the same space ship as they cross the galaxy and try to make their way home. Because the entire cast has lived on planets that have been segregated by gender for 3 generations, the show is able to set up really hilarious gags based on gender roles, like how the planet of the men believed, literately, that women were monsters who ate men alive.
The male protagonist, Hibiki, is leagues better than most harem anime protagonists because he is flawed in a dynamic way - Tenchi, for example, is flawed but also rather wimpy and only gets it together in time for the show's climax, while Hibiki is moving at 300 mph throughout the entire show and always dedicated to being full of action and 'manly'. Dita, the female lead, is also extremely energetic and also endearingly weird, though I feel like she was dealt too much negative romantic drama from Hibiki, which makes me feel terrible for her. The supporting cast are all based on classic anime tropes, but most of them get a chance to show a totally different side to themselves.
The Botany of Desire
This was not the show I thought it was - frankly, I thought it was going to be something along the lines of "HEY HERE IS THE SECRET OF TURNING OREGANO INTO AN APHRODIASIAC " or something like that. Nope. It's about how plants have adapted to being domesticated by humans, and how humans have drastically shaped the evolution of a few major crops, like apples, potatoes, and tulips. It was still an interesting show on a topic I would not have thought much about. I thought the most insightful segment was about genetic engineering of plants - you usually hear the very negative side of that story, and it was cool to see a documentary that shows the other side of that argument.
Ghost in the Shell 2.0
This is the remastered version of the 1995 movie, and it was freaking beautiful. At least visually. The story I thought was rather basic, and the chase and build-up was definitely a million times more interesting than the 'mystery' itself. I think the story would have benefited from investing even a little bit more time in characterizing the main cast - the ending lost a lot of power because the relationship between Kusanagi and Batou hadn't been well-explored previously, and even Kusanagi herself didn't have much deep characterization than "I don't know if I was ever really human or not".
Blue Gender: The Warrior (movie)
So I was kinda thinking that maybe the movie version of this really crappy anime series might possibly be better. NOPE. The only two advantages that the movie has over the show is (a) only an hour and a half long and (b) Yugi is actually cute with that long, curly red hair he has at the beginning. Also he didn't pee himself in the first ten minutes, unlike the anime series.
But this movie was so horrendous, and by far the worst thing I've watched in a long time (if sitting through commercials of Dance Moms doesn't count). It says something really bad when the most enjoyable parts of the film are when the main character is completely incapacitated and locked away for 20 minutes of the movie, and then SUDDENLY the plot gets somewhat interesting. Without him there to COMPLAIN ABOUT THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE WORLD EVERY SECOND HE'S ON SCREEN.
Also, SPOILER: the fucking POWER OF LOVE saves the main hero and heroine from getting eaten alive by alien monsters at the end. Literately. They finally admit they love each other, then the hoard of monsters literately in a circle around them ready to feed like, shrugs, then wanders off. THEN THE CREDITS.
STUPID MOVIE. GO SIT IN THE CORNER.
Rideback
I might have talked about Rideback before. I don't care.
AN EX-BALLERINA BECOMES THE BADASS MOTORCYCLE-RIDING SAVIOR TO A DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY.
This show blew my mind in the same exact way that Princess Tutu and The Twelve Kingdoms did in years past. It is so genre-breaking, but on top of being genre-breaking it is interesting and passionate, and the lead female character, Rin, is positively inspirational and single-minded in her pursuit of justice for her brother and her friends.
Tactics:
I didn't finish this series but I watched enough of it to realize that it is definitely not my cup of tea. This was the anime that I thought Black Butler was going to be - pandering to shonen-ai shippers without any wit and substance to its story. The 'mystery' in the first episode was so cliche that I could cry. For a similar premise that is actually decent, I'd look to Black Butler or Black Bird.
Life Beyond Earth:
Was really boring. I really don't remember a thing about it except that he was on a racetrack at some point mapping the timeline of the Earth.
To:
A two-episode OVA with two separate stories about life in outer space. It's rendered in a style that reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It took some getting used to, but eventually I got over the art. The first episode you can really skip over - the only interesting part is a single line at the very very end of the story which renders an M. Night twist on the entire story beforehand, but I'm not sure if it is worth sitting through that story. Maybe if you really like the second episode, you should go back.
And I REALLY LIKED the second episode. It reminded me of an Asimov short story, actually. It was about human efforts to colonize a planet with a mysterious fungal mold all over it, with a quasi-Romeo and Juliet framing to it - the US and the Russians both put up a base on the planet, and one pair of scientists, one from each camp, fall in lurve and try to stop the two bases from totally annihilating each other. It was really engrossing in a way the first episode was not.
National Geographic: Germs, Guns, and Steel:
Documentary based on a book of the same name by Jared Diamond. It's about his theory that the great civilizations of our world have arisen solely because of the luck of their geography - that the civilizations with the luck to have the best crops and animals were the societies that had the free time to develop technology. He refutes the idea that natural differences between races has anything to do with the have's versus have-not's. That's a fine theory, though I'm worried that it is one that would create apathy towards less privileged nations instead of inspiring people to help those nations catch up.
The first two episodes were very good documentaries - the first one focused on an isolated farming culture in Guam and comparing that land to the natural resources available in other areas, particularly the Fertile Crescent. The second episode focuses on the conquest of the Incans and the myriad of advantages in the Spaniards' favor, namely guns and their resistance to disease, even though the Incans were a populous, advanced, and civilized nation in their own right. The third episode has a very strange, sort of off-putting tone. It covers the conquest of Africa, and while the first two episodes presented a balanced view of the conquered and the conquering parties, the third episode was highly biased towards the white settlers being a force of good and civility. It was deeply uncomfortable, especially when you are talking about the massacre of entire African cultures.
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon:
It was okay. Basil Rathbone is a wonderful Sherlock to watch, and probably the one closest to my mental image of the character. I was not a fan of pretty much all of the supporting characters, with a particular dislike for the rendering of Watson, and something was off about Moriarty too - I didn't get the impression that his intelligence matched Sherlock's at all. The story was also eh. Maybe this was just the wrong 1940's Sherlock movie to start on?
Partway though:
Tears to Tiara
Like Fate/Stay Night, this anime is based on an h-game, just with the hentai bits taken out. It BAFFLES ME that stories like Fate and Tears even needed the hentai in the first place, cause the storylines stand up so well without any trace of romance at all. Tears is about a small quasi-Gaelic clan who leaves their home to stand up against the Empire which would destroy them for their insubordination, but fortunately the little clan has the help of an ancient demon-king at their backs. I'm inclined to believe that most of the principal characters are bisexual, if not gay, contrary to the h-game roots, which makes the show far more enjoyable to me.
This show, if for no other reason, is worth watching for Arthur's ridiculous Gaelic accent. Oh my god they just let the voice actors do whatever the fuck they wanted for this thing, and it's hilarious. I hope I can find blooper scenes on the Internet for this series.
This Emotional Life
I haven't really explored psychology documentaries yet, but this one was a wonderful start. The first episode focused on attachment theory, one of my favorite topics as a psych major. If you have ever heard of the experiment about baby monkeys being forced to choose between a false mother made of cloth and a false mother made of wire and a milk bottle, it is the human application of that experiment. The first episode explored attachment and human relationships in three categories - family, friends, and lovers, with case studies to get you involved with the concepts. There are parts that are uncomfortable and depressing and even upsetting, but I think that is okay, because there is so much that does go wrong in building human attachments. I think I'll actually watch the second episode today.
Wanna Sees:
Teen Wolf
I can't defend this one.
The Nine Lives of Chloe King
I can defend this one. CAT PEOPLE AND EGYPTIAN MYTH YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
nyan nyan nyan nyan nyaaaaaaaaan
Big Trouble in Little China
I love you Kurt Russell. I probably should have seen this a billion years ago.
The Shitload of Joseph Campbell Documentaries Which Just Went Up
There's a shitload of Joseph Campbell documentaries up on Netflix!
Iron Man: Extremis
The only thing that has me cautious is that this is a motion comic as opposed to a cartoon or whatever. But the premise and the member reviews are seriously tempting.
Assault on Precinct 13
The John Carpenter version. I saw it when I was a little kid, saw the shitty remake in theaters as a teenager, and want to remember what the old movie had been like.
SHIT I WATCH ON NETFLIX!
post.
Cosmos
This was pure awesome. After watching structured space shows like The Universe for so long, it was cool to watch one that was more organic, more poetic, and more leisurely. The Universe likes to impress you with threats of the Earth blowing up in a myriad of fashions - Carl Sagan's equivalent of this is a warning to humans themselves not to obliterate ourselves prematurely, which he believes we have already been doing by destroying knowledge and destroying other possibly-intelligent species, such as the whales.
My favorite parts of these episodes would be when Carl Sagan, in his calm, positive Carl Sagan way, would go off the rails to completely RAGE against the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. He does this in the first episode and the last, apparently for no reason at all, but his conversation does come full circle. And honestly, I didn't realize the Library was such a big deal until he brought it up. So while I think it was really amusing to watch him get so mad about it, it was clearly a passion point for him and ultimately enlightening.
Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking
IF YOU COULDN'T TELL, I'M A WHORE FOR SPACE DOCUMENTARIES. I enjoyed this one probably the most, compared to The Universe and Cosmos. It helped that Hawking kept to topics that I really really love, specifically aliens and time travel, but I felt like he obliged in more theory and physics than the other shows did. I enjoyed the tone of the show as well. It wasn't quite as Mr. Rogers-conversational as Cosmos, but I still felt like it was Hawking talking to the audience in the same casual manner a friend might teach another about a new subject.
The third episode is twice the length of the other two episodes, which I personally thought was too much - 80 minutes is a bit too long. Still, this series is very much worth the time invested.
The Super Mario Super Show
This show is every bit as great as I remember. I know that it is technically a bad show, but there are times when I think there is so much heart put into a project that there is still joy to be found in it. I find the live action skits so ridiculously charming, especially how they were somehow able to get big name celebrities on there. WHY DOESN'T THIS SHOW EXIST TODAY :<
I hope Netflix is still around when I have children, so I can have them watch this show.
The opening theme is still the most danceable song on the planet.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Shockingly amazing. I'm not inclined to be excited about the upcoming Avengers movie at all - possibly because my childhood was dominated more by the X-Men, but also because a number of the core characters have been historically boring to me - the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America in particular.
Well, their Hulk is the funniest and most likeable incarnation since the 1980's show with Lou Ferrigno - the characterization was probably inspired by the TV show version, in fact.
This show made me like Captain America.
(Thor is still the weak link in terms of characterization, but at least his storyline is a good vehicle to keep the show moving.)
Their Tony Stark is a riot (then again, I'm inclined to love Iron Man cause I think of him as the iconic Italian-American superhero. Like Mario.) He's framed as the main character, sort of - he is the glue behind the Avengers and he puts all of his power into keeping the team together, but there is surprisingly little drama and camera-whoring on his character. I thought that they would be capitalizing more on the overwhelming success of the Iron Man movies, but the show more often than not lets him step aside to focus on the other characters as-needed.
I'm rather happy with the treatment of Janet/The Wasp. She is dealt a lousy hand in terms of superpowers, but this show does the same thing as the comics and puts her inclination towards cleverness and leadership to her advantage, which helps her keep up with the other big-boys. Hank Pym/Antman was probably my least favorite character of the main cast, but that's not saying a lot because he is still a great counterpoint to all of the other male gung-ho superheroes in the group. I'm super-pleased with the mature, matter-of-fact romance between Janet and Hank too.
BLACK PANTHER YOU ARE TOO AWESOME FOR WORDS. I am so happy that they brought him into the fold. All of the other characters are so over-the-top that it's nice to have a character who will just go in and GIT ER DONE while the others are still bickering.
The part that shocked me the most had to do with the Black Widow and Hawkeye's relationship. Without saying so explicitly, it is made very clear through body language and emotional reactions that they were involved romantically, and that Hawkeye is such a jerk at the beginning because he is still feeling all the rage of a betrayed lover. It is amazing that they slipped so much powerful sexual tension under the radar. Bravo.
Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam
This was a movie consisting of four different character-driven short stories - Superman and Captain Marvel vs. Black Adam, The Spectre, Green Arrow, and Jonah Hexx.
Two major takeaways:
1) The Superman in here is DEAD SEXY. MY GOD. I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW, I DON'T EVEN LIKE SUPES THAT MUCH. He was terribly charming and sweet too - it gave me "Lois and Clark" flashbacks hardcore. I could have watched an entire movie of this version of Superman being supportive to children and maybe playing with puppies in the park.
2) THE GREEN ARROW SHORT WAS FRIGGIN AWESOME. All of the best dialogue clearly went to him, but also his sequence was nearly non-stop combat action. I'm inclined to think that modern-era superheroes who fight with bows and arrows are lame, but Hawkeye and this Green Arrow changed my mind.
The Jonah Hexx short was a waste of time, but I rather liked the Spectre one. The Shazam! thing was very rushed, and I thought the fights with Black Adam were rather anti-climatic.
Dance in the Vampire Bund
Not a popular opinion, I imagine, but I actually liked this anime. I guess I have squick-resistence to the half-naked loli vampire queen main character flouncing around the screen. Or maybe I liked Mina's character development enough to forgive the loli-bait rampant in the series. It was a show that surprised me by being a lot darker and atmospheric than I expected, and also by being way more political than I thought as well. Mina is really characterized as a competent queen and as utterly confident and in control, even during the times she was captured and humiliated, which I thought was refreshing when they just as easily could have made her a weeping princess or something stupid.
Actually I had more of a problem with the male lead, the 'everyman' Akira. He's a regular kid turned werewolf bodyguard, with amnesia cause that's the most obvious thing to do, and with some mysterious history to Mina. It was soooooo cliche and lame and I generally found him to be a waste of space. There were a number of more interesting side characters in the series I'd much rather follow.
Unfortunately, like Claymore, this series is based on an on-going manga, so it ended kind of abruptly and very confusingly. I don't think I could tell you how it ended because it didn't make much sense to me at the time. I actually wouldn't have minded another two episodes, if just to get some explanation and closure.
Black Butler
So while I was watching Dance in the Vampire Bund, K asked me "WHY DON'T YOU WATCH SOME ANIME THAT IS ACTUALLY GOOD?"
Then she suggested Black Butler and I thought it was a joke. There was no WAY Black Butler could be good. That show was just pandering yaoi shotacon bait embraced by new anime fans who really don't know better. I've seen enough terrible Ciel cosplays to know that no good could possibly come out of this show.
...YEAH I WAS WRONG ABOUT THAT ONE.
Black Butler, more than anything else, is hilarious. Like, hysterically funny. Sometimes it's tongue-in-cheek, sometimes it's with outright gags. All of it stems from the amazing characterization that went into this show - and by far and away, the treatment of Sebastian, the demon butler, is itself worth the time spent watching the show. The voice acting in the English version was superb. The animation quality was high. The stories were okay - some episodes were far better than others, though I thought the meta-plot to the show was a bit too weird and didn't tie back to the mystery of Ciel's past and parents strongly enough.
Vandread
I fucking adored this.
I love (a) harem anime, (b) harem anime that plays on gender roles, (c) 90's anime, (d) space n' shit. THANK YOU VANDREAD FOR PROVIDING ALL OF THE ABOVE (well TECHNICALLY it came out in 2000, but the tone is 100% 90's harem anime). It won so many points because it reminded me so much of one of my favorite animes of all time, Saber Marionette J.
Vandread is about escapees from a planet of only men and pirates from a planet of only women who are forced to co-habit the same space ship as they cross the galaxy and try to make their way home. Because the entire cast has lived on planets that have been segregated by gender for 3 generations, the show is able to set up really hilarious gags based on gender roles, like how the planet of the men believed, literately, that women were monsters who ate men alive.
The male protagonist, Hibiki, is leagues better than most harem anime protagonists because he is flawed in a dynamic way - Tenchi, for example, is flawed but also rather wimpy and only gets it together in time for the show's climax, while Hibiki is moving at 300 mph throughout the entire show and always dedicated to being full of action and 'manly'. Dita, the female lead, is also extremely energetic and also endearingly weird, though I feel like she was dealt too much negative romantic drama from Hibiki, which makes me feel terrible for her. The supporting cast are all based on classic anime tropes, but most of them get a chance to show a totally different side to themselves.
The Botany of Desire
This was not the show I thought it was - frankly, I thought it was going to be something along the lines of "HEY HERE IS THE SECRET OF TURNING OREGANO INTO AN APHRODIASIAC " or something like that. Nope. It's about how plants have adapted to being domesticated by humans, and how humans have drastically shaped the evolution of a few major crops, like apples, potatoes, and tulips. It was still an interesting show on a topic I would not have thought much about. I thought the most insightful segment was about genetic engineering of plants - you usually hear the very negative side of that story, and it was cool to see a documentary that shows the other side of that argument.
Ghost in the Shell 2.0
This is the remastered version of the 1995 movie, and it was freaking beautiful. At least visually. The story I thought was rather basic, and the chase and build-up was definitely a million times more interesting than the 'mystery' itself. I think the story would have benefited from investing even a little bit more time in characterizing the main cast - the ending lost a lot of power because the relationship between Kusanagi and Batou hadn't been well-explored previously, and even Kusanagi herself didn't have much deep characterization than "I don't know if I was ever really human or not".
Blue Gender: The Warrior (movie)
So I was kinda thinking that maybe the movie version of this really crappy anime series might possibly be better. NOPE. The only two advantages that the movie has over the show is (a) only an hour and a half long and (b) Yugi is actually cute with that long, curly red hair he has at the beginning. Also he didn't pee himself in the first ten minutes, unlike the anime series.
But this movie was so horrendous, and by far the worst thing I've watched in a long time (if sitting through commercials of Dance Moms doesn't count). It says something really bad when the most enjoyable parts of the film are when the main character is completely incapacitated and locked away for 20 minutes of the movie, and then SUDDENLY the plot gets somewhat interesting. Without him there to COMPLAIN ABOUT THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE WORLD EVERY SECOND HE'S ON SCREEN.
Also, SPOILER: the fucking POWER OF LOVE saves the main hero and heroine from getting eaten alive by alien monsters at the end. Literately. They finally admit they love each other, then the hoard of monsters literately in a circle around them ready to feed like, shrugs, then wanders off. THEN THE CREDITS.
STUPID MOVIE. GO SIT IN THE CORNER.
Rideback
I might have talked about Rideback before. I don't care.
AN EX-BALLERINA BECOMES THE BADASS MOTORCYCLE-RIDING SAVIOR TO A DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY.
This show blew my mind in the same exact way that Princess Tutu and The Twelve Kingdoms did in years past. It is so genre-breaking, but on top of being genre-breaking it is interesting and passionate, and the lead female character, Rin, is positively inspirational and single-minded in her pursuit of justice for her brother and her friends.
Tactics:
I didn't finish this series but I watched enough of it to realize that it is definitely not my cup of tea. This was the anime that I thought Black Butler was going to be - pandering to shonen-ai shippers without any wit and substance to its story. The 'mystery' in the first episode was so cliche that I could cry. For a similar premise that is actually decent, I'd look to Black Butler or Black Bird.
Life Beyond Earth:
Was really boring. I really don't remember a thing about it except that he was on a racetrack at some point mapping the timeline of the Earth.
To:
A two-episode OVA with two separate stories about life in outer space. It's rendered in a style that reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It took some getting used to, but eventually I got over the art. The first episode you can really skip over - the only interesting part is a single line at the very very end of the story which renders an M. Night twist on the entire story beforehand, but I'm not sure if it is worth sitting through that story. Maybe if you really like the second episode, you should go back.
And I REALLY LIKED the second episode. It reminded me of an Asimov short story, actually. It was about human efforts to colonize a planet with a mysterious fungal mold all over it, with a quasi-Romeo and Juliet framing to it - the US and the Russians both put up a base on the planet, and one pair of scientists, one from each camp, fall in lurve and try to stop the two bases from totally annihilating each other. It was really engrossing in a way the first episode was not.
National Geographic: Germs, Guns, and Steel:
Documentary based on a book of the same name by Jared Diamond. It's about his theory that the great civilizations of our world have arisen solely because of the luck of their geography - that the civilizations with the luck to have the best crops and animals were the societies that had the free time to develop technology. He refutes the idea that natural differences between races has anything to do with the have's versus have-not's. That's a fine theory, though I'm worried that it is one that would create apathy towards less privileged nations instead of inspiring people to help those nations catch up.
The first two episodes were very good documentaries - the first one focused on an isolated farming culture in Guam and comparing that land to the natural resources available in other areas, particularly the Fertile Crescent. The second episode focuses on the conquest of the Incans and the myriad of advantages in the Spaniards' favor, namely guns and their resistance to disease, even though the Incans were a populous, advanced, and civilized nation in their own right. The third episode has a very strange, sort of off-putting tone. It covers the conquest of Africa, and while the first two episodes presented a balanced view of the conquered and the conquering parties, the third episode was highly biased towards the white settlers being a force of good and civility. It was deeply uncomfortable, especially when you are talking about the massacre of entire African cultures.
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon:
It was okay. Basil Rathbone is a wonderful Sherlock to watch, and probably the one closest to my mental image of the character. I was not a fan of pretty much all of the supporting characters, with a particular dislike for the rendering of Watson, and something was off about Moriarty too - I didn't get the impression that his intelligence matched Sherlock's at all. The story was also eh. Maybe this was just the wrong 1940's Sherlock movie to start on?
Partway though:
Tears to Tiara
Like Fate/Stay Night, this anime is based on an h-game, just with the hentai bits taken out. It BAFFLES ME that stories like Fate and Tears even needed the hentai in the first place, cause the storylines stand up so well without any trace of romance at all. Tears is about a small quasi-Gaelic clan who leaves their home to stand up against the Empire which would destroy them for their insubordination, but fortunately the little clan has the help of an ancient demon-king at their backs. I'm inclined to believe that most of the principal characters are bisexual, if not gay, contrary to the h-game roots, which makes the show far more enjoyable to me.
This show, if for no other reason, is worth watching for Arthur's ridiculous Gaelic accent. Oh my god they just let the voice actors do whatever the fuck they wanted for this thing, and it's hilarious. I hope I can find blooper scenes on the Internet for this series.
This Emotional Life
I haven't really explored psychology documentaries yet, but this one was a wonderful start. The first episode focused on attachment theory, one of my favorite topics as a psych major. If you have ever heard of the experiment about baby monkeys being forced to choose between a false mother made of cloth and a false mother made of wire and a milk bottle, it is the human application of that experiment. The first episode explored attachment and human relationships in three categories - family, friends, and lovers, with case studies to get you involved with the concepts. There are parts that are uncomfortable and depressing and even upsetting, but I think that is okay, because there is so much that does go wrong in building human attachments. I think I'll actually watch the second episode today.
Wanna Sees:
Teen Wolf
I can't defend this one.
The Nine Lives of Chloe King
I can defend this one. CAT PEOPLE AND EGYPTIAN MYTH YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
nyan nyan nyan nyan nyaaaaaaaaan
Big Trouble in Little China
I love you Kurt Russell. I probably should have seen this a billion years ago.
The Shitload of Joseph Campbell Documentaries Which Just Went Up
There's a shitload of Joseph Campbell documentaries up on Netflix!
Iron Man: Extremis
The only thing that has me cautious is that this is a motion comic as opposed to a cartoon or whatever. But the premise and the member reviews are seriously tempting.
Assault on Precinct 13
The John Carpenter version. I saw it when I was a little kid, saw the shitty remake in theaters as a teenager, and want to remember what the old movie had been like.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-15 07:53 pm (UTC)I'm reading the Sherlock Holmes anthology right now and that is exactly how I felt while watching that movie.
JAM <3333