High School of the Dead

Okay, let’s make a couple things clear before I get too deep into this one. For one, I have no idea what the creators of this ridiculous anime were thinking when they decided that the appropriate acronym would be HOTD. Everyone knows that stands for House of the Dead. I mean, c’mon, it was made by Sega for crying out loud. That’s a Japanese company. They should seriously do a better job of protecting their acronyms from their fellow countrymen who can apparently barely speak Engrish.

Anyways, I’m going to be referring to it as HSOTD, to avoid confusion with Sega’s little zombie arcade/Wii/et al games.

Next, I want to make it clear that at no point have I ever thought to myself, anything like: “Man, zombies are cool but there’s a serious lack of animated panty shots of Japanese schoolgirls in the vast majority of the currently existing zombie records.” But, somebody else did, and I couldn’t help but find out what the results of this odd experiment would be.

It is a little uncomfortable that they occasionally try to censor the gore or whatever by cutting to a shot looking up the skirt of the victim...typically with blood flying onto what you can see of the victim’s skirt. I mean, I’m hardly a fan of gratuitous shots of Japanese schoolgirl panties when they aren’t currently being consumed by the living dead and adding that in hardly changes my mind.

But, again, that’s what they’re doing and I’m watching it, so kudos to them for making the call.

Okay, on to the show. So far, I’ve only seen the first two episodes. I do rather like that it starts off fast. There is no transition period from normal to apocalypse. Once the first zombie appears, there’s three more before we’ve established anything beyond what three of the main characters look like. I kind of like the idea that anime is sufficiently cliched that they barely have to show us more than a single flashback and a brief conversation establishing a former love lost to tell us everything we need to know about the characters. That no other facet of their lives is even remotely unique (not that this detail is) and so we already know our characters and their lives and we haven’t even met them yet.

In any case, it means that we are only going to know these characters in the context of the destruction of their world. I also rather like the main character’s reaction to seeing the first zombie attack and victim. He doesn’t question it; he doesn’t doubt it. He simply reacts. He gets his two friends and says we need to get out of here. He moves as fast as he possibly can, resorting to hitting his crush to make his point.

And he still wasn’t fast enough. They still couldn’t escape even the madness in the school, let alone the outside city. Although, I did like a lot of the imagery of the riot within the school as the kids try to get out. As they kill each other, trying to get out. Reaching and grabbing and tackling, with mouths open in wild constant wild screams, they were already zombies and they didn’t even know it.

What can I say? This is a surprisingly angry and subversive little show. They aren’t wasting their zombies or their violence. They might be wasting their panty shots. And the random giant breasts shots, but we won’t hold those against them.

As for the zombies, I rather like them. They are a little cooler than your classic slow Romero zombies. They’re strong. Before the girl learns how to deal with them, she sticks one with her pole. It grabs the pole, still impaled, and slams her against the wall. That’s a pretty kick ass zombie response.

Even better, though, was when one of the characters puts the zombie in a hold that it can’t escape from or bite him. It responds by twisting its head an inhuman 120 degrees or so and bites him in the shoulder. It was brilliant. Admittedly, that means that neck injuries probably shouldn’t kill them for continuity’s sake, but well, we’ll worry about that when we get there.

Later, they had some slightly more obvious instances of the humans responding poorly to the zombies, like these two girls who promise to stay together and protect each other, until moments later one of them gets grabbed and the other girl has to beat her to let go of her hand so that she can escape without her. Neither survives of course.

Anyways, after the first episode I was impressed enough to definitely want to watch more, and the second episode had something the first never even hinted at: a character arc. I’m serious. I admit I certainly wasn’t expecting one of those anywhere in the show.

And, more importantly, it was a really cool character arc. In the first episode, one of the survivor types is this rather obnoxious “genius” girl with pink hair. For awhile, she’s confident and self-assured and learning about the zombies and keeping her fellow survivor in line. But she’s slowly becoming more hysterical, more in need of people’s respect and less deserving of it. Until she finally cracks and nearly sabotages herself and her partner’s escape with her pride and theatrics.

It was really well done. The breakdown was very slow, over the course of the two episodes. And I liked that the episode ended with her taking out her contacts out and switching to glasses. A visual reminder that she’s been humbled, humiliated even, and that her self image is no longer something she can, or should protect. She has to give it up to survive.

So, yeah, I’m thoroughly impressed. This is way more intelligent than the incorrect acronym or the random panty shots would possibly suggest. Or, maybe, I’m just giving them way too much credit. There are already hints that we’re going to see some sort of stupid love triangle... But, it’s not there yet and so I still have faith.

That is all.

Francis

Variety of Random Topics

Okay, I kind of put off posting for a while, so now I've just got a wide variety of things that I sort of had a lot to say about, but by this point I've forgotten most of it, so once everything gets added together, it will probably be pretty decently long.

Let's see, I think I want to start with...Chuck. And Jordana Brewster. Well, I guess mainly Jordana Brewster. So, the dear Ms. Brewster is playing Chuck's long mysterious ex-girlfriend. Now, we've been dying to meet Jill Roberts since, oh, um, 5 minutes into the first episode or so. We've wanted to meet her, primarily so that Chuck can finally get over her, but also we just want to meet her. Okay, then when we found out that she was to be played by Jordana Brewster, then we really wanted to meet her. We will also stop using the royal "we" at this point, because we all know just how annoying it is, don't we?

Anyways, last week she finally appeared. Now, I had mixed feelings, but I wasn't about to hold that against her. Most of my problems arose from the fact that Jill apparently got a Ph.D. in Biochemistry after ditching Chuck and, well, putting glasses on Jordana Brewster...isn't quite enough to make her look even remotely intelligent.

I mean, it's not like she looks incapable of being intelligent, but she just doesn't feel right in that role. I first met her in The Faculty, where she's playing the bitchy prom queen-type girl. I think she also had a major role in The Fast and the Furious. She's not meant to be playing smart. Olivia Wilde can sort of pull it off in House because, well, I've never really thought doctors were all that smart anyways, so I don't hold them to very high standards (it's part of being a chemical engineer, you become an asshole and lose respect for stuff that seems easy compared to the problems you had to solve). But, a Ph.D. in biochemistry, that's a little different.

But, aside from, I was unsure about how I felt about the way they were treating her character. Not surprisingly, Chuck pretty much forgets about Sarah as soon as he sees Jill (remember, he's not over her). And of course Sarah gets jealous and all that's fine. But, I just wasn't sure what they were actually doing with her character. I mean, she's still kind of into Chuck, then finds out that he's still a nobody and loses some but not all interest in him.

Then, and he's where I really got more than kind of frustrated, he informs her that he's actually a spy. I mean, seriously? She's the first person from his real life that gets to find out he's a spy? That's just...not right. She doesn't even earn it. He's basically just letting her know to impress her (right after talking about how cool it felt to have a girl be interested in him who doesn't know he's a spy...which hasn't happened since, like, midway through season 1 with Rachel Bilson...man I'm bringing up two different O.C. alums in the same post...freaky).

So, I came out of it feeling like if they actually wanted to keep her around and have us like her, then they would let her figure out that Chuck is a spy (since she's all super smart and stuff). And her figuring it out would give her the benefit of the doubt (in other words, if she was awesome enough to figure out Chuck's secret on her own, then we, as the audience, not as royalty, would pretty much be willing to forgive her for breaking his heart, all those years ago). But, they took that option away from her, so she doesn't really have a good way to earn our trust and respect, so she's probably going to be gone quick.

Then we had this week's episode, where they were kind enough to inform us that, yes, she is an evil bitch and we're not supposed to like her, even if she is being played by Ms. Jordana Brewster. Of course, the way they decided to do this was completely irrational and makes no sense at all, but that's okay. We're used to it in this show (and Heroes managed to botch up at least as much stuff last week in their flashback episode, so the standards had been lowered pretty significantly, but I'm not talking about Heroes right now as I sit, very tentatively optimistic for the upcoming episodes, I'm talking about Chuck). They decided that she's a spy for the bad guys.

Yeah, I know. Really freaking stupid decision. They end the episode by informing us that she's a government agent, who's actually a spy for Fulcrum (the bad guys). Obviously, this makes no sense. It doesn't make sense because if she worked for the government (which they informed us she did) then they would have informed her that bad guys were making a move on her boss and, furthermore, they would have alerted Casey and Sarah to work with Jill. But, no one told anyone that she's a government agent.

Even more ridiculous: Chuck didn't flash on her! Oh my God, people, are you that incompetent?!? I swear, it's like you wrote last week's episode, filmed it and completed it and then while working on the very next episode, decided this would be a cool idea. You completely ignored everything that had just happened. I mean, when Heroes screws up, at least they're continuous with the previous week's episode. You're not even close.

What's worse is that last week's episode could have worked just as well with everyone knowing that Jill was a government agent. I bet it would have been better even. Casey and Sarah would be working with Jill to protect/interrogate her boss and they would be trying to keep Chuck secret since he's the Intersect and all. Of course, Chuck would be chomping at the bit to see her and say hi and be all "Hey, I'm the Intersect. Have sex with me." And, yeah, it would work fine (but, then I guess the twist in this episode wouldn't be a surprise, but that's alright since the way it is now, it's a twist where the audience just goes WTF?).

So, yeah, I'm kind of sad that I'm frustrated with Chuck right now. But, really, it's not Chuck, it's me. Clearly, I'm not cool enough to be watching it if things like this bother me. But, I'll keep trying, because I do love it so much.

Let's see, next on the list is, um, Valkyria Chronicles. Sometimes, it makes me sad that I play video games so slow. I've already put a good 15-ish official game time hours into that game, which probably translates into 20-25 real hours. And I think I'm just about halfway through it at this point. But, no, I was too slow to start having impressions that won't just sound like me jumping on the "Valkyria Chronicles is so ridiculously amazing everyone should play it. No, really you should even though you don't own a PS3 or like strategy RPGs, it's just that good" bandwagon. But, well, there's a reason this bandwagon formed and it's not because people like to love PS3 exclusive games (in fact, I think people seem to prefer to either hate or ignore such games).

That bandwagon formed because this game is freaking brilliant. Let's pretend for a moment that it isn't one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. Let's just judge it based upon the gameplay. Okay then, it's the best thing the console RPG genre has ever produced, pretty much hands down. I've been addicted to Fire Emblem. I've been addicted to Disgaea. I've been addicted to Advance Wars and I've played a fair amount of Final Fantasy Tactics. All of them are very good and tons of fun. Gameplay-wise, though, not even close, except maybe Advance Wars, and that's just because it's so ridiculously complicated. Valkyria Chronicles' gameplay is almost simple compared to those other games with far fewer unit types and modifiers. But, the way you interact with it, is so much better. Sega didn't start with Chess and make it more complicated. They started with, maybe Star Ocean and Gears of War, and added a little bit of Chess to it. And it feels so right.

I never want to have to move characters around on a grid again (that is a blatant lie, by the way, I'll be playing more Disgaea in a couple months, I'm sure). That's how cool it felt to actually take control of my characters.

On an only vaguely related note, I think there's a question that some of the reviewers need to ask themselves. This would primarily be the reviewers complaining that there's lots of cut scenes. While playing the game, there's a point where you get the option to spend 50000 gold to access some extra cut scenes of your characters on vacation. Around this time, I had about 80000 gold, so this was a significant portion of my money (which goes towards funding better weapons and armor and stuff). Now, if you see that option and you immediately spend the money before even realizing that this vacation will involve going to the beach and seeing the female characters in needlessly skimpy bikinis, you are the type of person this game was made for. If you think, for even a moment, about the fact that you're going to fall behind in the research category and not be as powerful and get effectively nothing in return, then please, don't review this game. We don't care about your opinion of the cutscenes.

Also, only very vaguely related, I was just hoping that if anybody else populated their entire army solely with cute young girls (yes, there are a couple Japanese schoolgirls, but they're typically more like scouts than heavy lancers, to my ever-so-slight disappointment), they'd let me know, just so I don't feel like the only weird loser doing that. For that matter, people whose Rock Band bands are entirely populated by girls would make me feel better too. Although, for the record, I don't make those characters wear as little clothing as possible. I spend the time to find cool costumes for them that look good without removing significant amounts of clothing. I think that, at worst, that only makes me slightly sexist and possibly vaguely feminist since I'm not objectifying these female characters (who, let's be honest, actually are just objects...err, rather, digital objects but you get the idea) and am instead choosing to interact with the game through those avatars instead of my own gender and I have no idea where I'm going with this at all. Moving on...

Valkyria Chronicles is really awesome. Oh, and did I mention the art style? Gorgeous, really. It achieves its goals admirably. It doesn't feel real, but it feels powerful. Some of the best parts at the beginning show these idyllic, peaceful countrysides in this watercolor/penciled-style suddenly getting destroyed by the bad guys. Those are times when it really, really works.

Lastly, I just have a quick thing to say. So, apparently on MTV there's some stupid game show where people play Rock Band in front of an audience and get judged and if they do well then they win prizes. I'd heard it mentioned here and there, always with lots of negative connotations, but I just watched it and it was so amazing. Like, I was falling off the couch laughing at the bands and the performances were totally fun to watch as well. They do this cool thing where it's like watching people playing Rock Band, except instead of the computer generated performers and audience, it's the actually performers and audience (but you can still see the note charts and stuff like that).

Anyways, I highly recommend it. The host is kind of lame (it's kind of obvious he thinks he got stuck with a crappy gig), but everything else about it is so funny. The best part is when they go behind the scenes and interview the competitors and these people are so cool and funny. I mean, they totally love Rock Band and they're excited to be playing in front of an audience, but they're totally aware this is just for fun. And they're having fun. There were two great quotes from the episode I saw. The first one was a response to why they got into Rock Band. I'm paraphrasing but the band leader explains that they got into it because they totally sucked at real instruments, at which point the drummer pipes in and says "That shit is HARD, man!". Trust me, it was funny. The other quote started with the cliched "Rock Band is not a game...it's an experience". But, then after a couple moments of thinking about what he just said, the guy continues, "but if it was a game, it would be, like, the GREATEST GAME EVER!". Yeah, that's a memorable quote.

Let's see, real quick I can mention that I've tried Guitar Hero: World Tour and it pretty much sucks compared to Rock Band (okay, that's a slight exaggeration...um, changed my mind, no exaggeration at all). The primary problem is that they made the conscious decision to make it a multiplayer game that doesn't play like a multiplayer game. You're not a band when you're playing as a group in this game, you're just a group of people all playing the same song at the same time on different instruments. I mean, I think it even gives everyone separate scores (or at least it feels like it does since they eliminated anything like cooperation from the gameplay). The secondary problem is that they decided to make the rule be that if someone fails out, then everyone fails out (even though everyone else can't really do anything to prevent the person who failed out from failing out). This is frustrating, in case you're curious.

Otherwise, it's all just slightly different design choices that are neither right nor wrong, just different (so, since I'm way too used to Rock Band, they all feel wrong, but I know they're not necessarily wrong). Neither game has come up with just the right way to do vocals, but I think Rock Band is a little closer. On drums, it's nice to activate star power whenever I want, but I miss the drum fills as well. On bass, supposedly the note-less strums grow on you once you get used to the idea a little bit. Hmm, well, I failed at being real quick, but it was still kinda quick.

Well, the only other thing I can think of that might be worth mentioning (read as: really is not worth mentioning, but I'm going to anyway) is that I saw the most recent Hellsing Ultimate DVD and it was just okay. A lot of people rag on the original anime for completely abandoning the story in the manga about halfway through. So, the Hellsing Ultimate DVDs are pretty much just for those fans, since they promise to stick with the manga all the way through. I'm now two DVDs past the halfway mark in the original, and well, I'm still up in the air. Neither one finishes is all that great.

The original anime tried to go out in a rather different direction with bigger and scarier and weirder demons appearing. This doesn't really fit with the theme in the manga, but it's not inherently bad. This one, which I assume is following the manga that I haven't read, is just repeating the same theme over and over again. That would be the theme that Alucard is way more sinister and evil and demonic than any of the evil things he gets called in to fight. After the fourth disc of that, I'm kind of starting to understand why the anime wanted to do something different. There's only so many times we can watch the bad guys doing horrible things only to crumple into snivelling creatures at Alucard and the horrors he's capable of. So, we'll have to see. This one was kind of a transition one, so it's possible that the next disc could do some interesting stuff because he'll fighting Nazi vampires that he thought he eliminated, so these are bad guys who actually faced him before and are relishing the thought of facing him again, not because they think they can win, but because they relish the amount of horror and evil this confrontation will bring into the world. Like I said, this could be interesting.

I also like that we get to see more of the crazy priest dude who works for the Catholics. I like him too.

Alright, that is all.

Francis

October Random Horror Movie Reviews

So, pretty much per normal, I've been watching a fair number of horror movies in celebration of it being October and all. Yeah, it's quite the excuse, I know. So, yeah, somewhere in here, maybe, is a movie you might want to see. And my glowing review of it. But you'll have to read the whole thing to find it. Oh, and I didn't really have much of a theme this year. I watched a lot of 80s horror movies I'd been meaning to see, so maybe that counts as a theme. Not a good theme but still a theme.

So, let's begin (this is pretty easy because I have my Netflix history in front of me).

Re-Animator
I'd been meaning to see this one for awhile. This is a classic 80s zombie movie. I really like how 80s zombie movies didn't know about 28 Days Later. It makes things really interesting. It feels to me, as someone whose only conscious memory of a movie when it actually came out in the 80s being The Little Mermaid, that there was a cool experimentation period in zombie movie history during this time. There were all these movies that played around with zombies, all the while purposely trying not to just be like George Romero. Nowadays, everyone just wants to be like George and/or Danny. Which is okay, but it's nice to see a fresh perspective.

It's also nice to see Jeffrey Combs. He really just embodies the crazy mad scientist. I first saw him in The 4400 and thought he was awesome. Now I see why he got that role.

In any case, the reason this movie is awesome is because about half way through the movie, the bad guy gets his head cut off. And not cleanly, mind you. Yeah, that doesn't really stop him. It just means that he has to spend the rest of the movie carrying his severed head around. That's awesome. Now, I don't support rape, nor do I officially support necrophilia. But, when a headless corpse captures a young woman, tears her clothes off and prepares to rape her, while holding his creepy, salivating head the whole time, I can't help but applaud.

So, yeah, this is a pretty cool movie. It has some similar qualities to Return of the Living Dead, in that the people they Re-Animate are definitely in pain. Typically screaming. An extra impressive scene is when they bring a dead cat back to life and have it attack them. So, they break its spine to kill it. And bring it back again. That's just screwed up. Highly recommended.

Dead and Buried
I decided I wanted to see this old school 80s zombie movie, without knowing anything about it at all. I thought it was an alien invasion movie, to be honest. But, no, it was a zombie movie. This one even had a twist ending, although the fact that I just told you it has a twist pretty much gives it away (yeah, it's the kind of twist that is pretty obvious if you're looking for it). But, if you forget that I told you it has a twist, it's pretty cool. I really wish I could talk about it without spoiling it. Let's just say, it's about zombies living among us. Like normal people. Yeah, these aren't Romero's zombies. It's pretty old school. Voodoo zombie old school. I liked it, by the way.

Quarantine
Yep, I saw this one in theaters. Opening night, to be honest. No, you're not surpised. It was good. Very good. It saddens me that this, Saw 5, and High School Musical 3 were the only horror movie options for October 2008. I mean, I guess last October just had 30 Days of Night and Saw 4, so at least we're not doing worse (just watch, next year, it'll be just Saw 6 and I will die a little inside). But, I did like this one a lot. The pacing was excellently done. We got to know our main characters and couldn't help but kind of like them, especially Miss Jennifer Carpenter, who was in the not particularly scary The Exorcism of Emily Rose (as Emily Rose). But, once the horror starts, they don't slow down. At all. It just keeps moving forward, gaining momentum and momentum and tension and tension...only to just end the same way as the trailer. And the poster. Yeah, I don't know who thought to market the movie by showing its ending, but that's freaking anti-climactic as hell. Don't do that. For all you future marketing dudes.

In any case, the rest of the movie was awesome, and the end would be pretty awesome too if I hadn't already seen it way too many times. I guess the ending would also have been more awesome if Miss Jennifer Carpenter wasn't just completely ridiculous. At the end, her character is obnoxiously incapable of doing anything besides mumble hysterically and scream. It works for like 15 seconds as a way to get the audience scared, but then it's just annoying.

Oh yeah, Maya from Heroes was in it too. I think she killed someone. I couldn't tell if her eyes were black at the time. I assume they were red, though. Maybe, black-ish red.

Now, I don't want to spoil this, but there is one, very good reason for why this movie does the whole "first-person camera recording the events that happened in real time thing". The cameraman kills a zombie with the camera.

Let me repeat that, now that you're sitting up again from the shock of the sheer awesomeness of that idea. The cameraman used the camera, specifically the lens of the camera, as a blunt instrument with which to repeatedly bludgeon a zombie in its face until it died. That didn't happen in Cloverfield, by the way. It definitely didn't happen in The Blair Witch Project. But, it happened in Quarantine. I managed to get the whole theater cheering for him.

Other than that, this one isn't really about the first-person thing that much. I mean, our camera man is a professional camera man, and he carries himself like one. Except when they're running away and stuff like that, of course. So, pretty much like normal, the audience is completely disoriented whenever something cool is happening on screen, but I guess that's how these things go.

Oh, and I was also impressed with how important it was to the film-makers to have a backstory and to tell it. That was well done. Definitely over the course of the movie, I felt like I was learning about what the cause of the outbreak was and why everything was happening. Suspension of disbelief was very achievable, which was nice. I appreciate that.

Let's see, next is Dance of the Dead.

So, um, it's worth pointing out that I apparently watched way more zombie movies than I had realized. Man, whenever I don't specifically pick a theme, it always just ends up being zombies. How does that happen? How can there be so many zombie movies that I want to see? I just don't know.

So, let's get back to Dance of the Dead. It's a fairly low budget indie high school comedy/zombie movie. To be perfectly honest, this German movie I saw a little while back called Night of the Living Losers was, approximately, 10000000 times better. I don't know how many zeroes I put in there. Just assume plus or minus a couple orders of magnitude of that number. Now, to be perfectly fair, this movie was perfectly decent. I enjoyed it. But, if you're going to do a silly high school zombie comedy, you need one of the zombies to be a stoner. You also need one of the zombies to try to get laid. I mean, what kind of high school comedy doesn't have those characters, and if you're doing that genre, then, well, you're going to have to make them zombies (note that Idle Hands gets credit for the character trying to get laid because the main character tries to have sex while his hand is trying to kill the girl).

Now, let me step back and admit that there is a character who gives up his life to be undead and get the cute chick who just turned into a zombie (and the sex appears to involve a lot of biting). So, there is that (if that scene isn't a powerful argument for abstinence, I don't know what is).

But, really, this movie just doesn't really have very many original ideas and plays by the rules of an 80s high school comedy so closely that it really feels stifling. We've got the nerds who end up impressing the girls who normally wouldn't give them a second look, the bully who used to beat up the nerds but is now helping them, the student council girl who's dating the main character who's life is pretty much directionless but he's using this as a way to prove he's worth something, the punk rockers who turn out to be pretty cool...and get stoned so maybe they count as the stoners, but I'm vetoing on account of the fact that they get stoned prior to finding that zombies are attacking, the mean teacher who helps them out and well, probably a bunch more cliches than that, but this is already a stupidly long sentence, so I'm just going to cut it short, right, about, here.

I will say that there's an extended scene by scene homage to Return of the Living Dead, which is cool, but hardly original and also more than a little overkill. Because, I mean, c'mon, if I'm watching your little zombie movie, then I've probably seen the original version of those scenes, and you didn't do anything clever to make yours better either, or even comparable. Otherwise, it was, just, decent. It definitely wasn't bad, but I guess it had been talked up a fair amount, so I kind of had high hopes for it. In the end, it just made me want to watch Night of the Living Losers again.

Oh, did I mention that in Night of the Living Losers, when the zombie is trying to get laid, one of his balls falls off? Yeah, I think it's normally some sort of German slang for not lasting very long, but it was just kind of awkward, in a funny way. Lastly, that movie had a hot Spanish love interest. That wins some major points too.

Okay, now for: not a zombie movie! Yep, it's true, I also watched a Japanese ghost movie (you'd think I'd seen just about all of those too, but no, there's a whole lot of those). I watched the original One Missed Call.

Now, I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this, because it's directed by this more than kind of screwed up Japanese directer named Takashi Miike. Note this is not Takashi Shimizu, who was my horror movie theme last year. In the end, I pretty much got a by-the-books Japanese ghost horror movie with your typical Japanese schoolgirl trying to find out why all her friends are dying and then trying to appease the ghost, but failing and, well, you know how it goes.

Yeah, for the genre, it was above average, but definitely not special, until the very end. The movie ends with Takashi Miike apparently waking up and going, "Wait, I make crazy evil shit like Ichi, the Killer. I have a reputation to uphold." And, well, let's just say he upheld it. Brilliantly, too. Instead of finishing with a gross or gory climax, it finishes with a happy, dreamy song about hope and happiness and bright blue skies and stuff. This is just after we watched the ghost take possession of the main character and stab her requisite older male friend. But, she didn't kill him. Just stabbed him and took him to the hospital, because that's what she would do when she was alive. And he's just giving up and letting her do this to him.

Yeah, not a bad way to finish an otherwise completely generic movie.

Let's see, then I saw Scanners because I thought it was a zombie movie, but it turns out it wasn't. In my defense, if you ever see a picture of the cover, there is no way in the world you won't assume that it's a zombie movie. There's basically a zombie on the cover, so, reasonably, you would assume that there's zombies in the movie. But, not so much.

It was okay. I'm just not that big a fan of David Cronenberg. He just thinks very differently from me. When I want a scene to be big and dramatic, he makes it very small and claustrophobic. Over and over again. Which isn't to say that he always goes small, it's just he never does makes things big when I would want him to. The result is that I'm just not that comfortable watching his movies. Things are never quite how I want them to be. So, yeah, that's just how it goes with him.

In this movie, there's all these psychics doing battle. Basically, this involves them staring at each other until somebody's head explodes. I mean, it's cool, but the flow of the battle is entirely controlled by the camera's cuts and the people faces. It makes it feel like we're just waiting, instead of watching.

Similarly, in A History of Violence, when Viggo Mortenson goes to kick William Hurt (or is it John Hurt, God, I'm so bad at their names) ass, he just goes there and kills the goons and then William Hurt. Mr. Hurt wants to talk and talk, because that's what he does, but Viggo just kills him. Again, that's not how it felt like it should go. On the other hand, it's clear he's playing with the role reversal as this family man switches back to his old persona, a silent, cold-blooded killer, while the man whose been trying to kill him can't shut up and barely seems dangerous (okay, that's an exaggeration, he seems like a snake who'll strike and kill given the slightest opportunity, but finds there are none, so he dies).

So, yeah, Scanners was alright.

And, lastly, I watched Diary of the Dead. Now, I'd heard some mixed reviews on this one. Well, I guess primarily bad reviews, with one really positive review actually counts as poor reviews, but anyways, I saw it. In Blu-ray by the way, looked gorgeous. Really did.

And, well, it certainly did do a lot of stuff wrong. Like the obnoxious narrator that couldn't shut up to save her life (disappointingly, she didn't die, but not because she could shut up, that's for sure). I swear, the movie would have been significantly better if she didn't feel compelled to talk all the time. And, so I end up having to ask what Romero was thinking when he chose to have her talking. See, the idea behind Diary of the Dead is that it's actually this student film called The Death of Death that some film school kids made during the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. They spend a lot of time discussing why they felt compelled to do this, and if that's something you're curious about go see the movie, so they can talk about it for you.

Anyways, they made it. And gave it an obnoxious narrator who has to point out every single even potential meaning in the shots she picked and comment on the nature of humanity, and the observer, and society and the media and whatever else is on her mind. So, I have to ask, why does she exist Mr. George A. Romero, sir? Are you speaking through her? Please say no, because you didn't need to have her in your other movies. Even Land of the Dead, which seemed unable to decide between being a stupid zombie movie and a discussion on humanity and the classes in society, didn't have a narrator walking us through every shot. I mean, you don't need her. So, do you use her as a part of the gimmick of this being a student film and so they're full of self-importance and have to explain everything for the viewer? Because, that's not cool. We don't want to see a student film; we want to see a George Romero film. Just to be clear.

But, well, it's also the best zombie movie I've seen in quite a while. It's annoying to watch, but it's also pretty good. There's some zombie kills that can stand up to anything, ever. Even though the characters are annoying, I enjoyed them. I enjoyed watching them fall apart. I liked how the camera was a central character. How the camera helped to tear them apart just as much as, if not more than, anything else. It's just annoying that the characters had to talk about that too.

But, most of all, I love the way George A. Romero ends his zombie movies. They're always so hopeless. Even when humanity wins, we're losing. But, most times, George just lets us lose, straight up. This movie stopped at just the right time. And I know it's because George Romero knows how to make these movies and does it so well. I loved ending it with the characters trapped in a panic room, surrounded by aimless zombies outside, and TVs inside showing them only hopelessness. I like knowing that it was in this situation that they sat down and started editing and making this movie.

It's just, so right. God, I love George Romero's zombie movies. They're really so much better than anything anyone else does.

That is all.

Francis

Appleseed: Ex Machina

Well, I finally got around to checking this movie out. I swear I added it to my Netflix queue not long after I first got a PS3, but it took forever for it to become available. In fact, even this copy had to be mailed from Massachusetts or somewhere like that, which means that they didn't have it in stock anywhere closer to me, and probably that they had gotten tired of it sitting at the top of my queue and had given up on it showing up anywhere closer to me. I was, of course, pissed at them for sending it across the country because that takes an extra couple of days.

I was extra annoyed, though, because it also takes them an extra day just to ship it (so it didn't even get shipped until I was expecting it to arrive and then didn't arrive until around the time that I would normally expect to be receiving the next movie on my queue after returning it). Oh, yeah, they actually did that with two of my movies this past week, so I pretty much lost that week as far as movie watching is concerned.

On the other hand, Persona 3: FES came out on Tuesday, so it's probably not a bad thing that I didn't have any movies to distract me from the game (it's looking grim, I'm starting back over from the beginning, which means I'm planning to sink at least another 80+ hours into it, not to mention the 30+ hours of additional content they've added).

Not that this is relevant at all, but the other movie was Dan in Real Life. I actually wasn't able to watch it all the way through. It's a very painful movie to watch. So, yeah, if you ever plan to see it, make sure that the option to just stop it is available, because I swear there must be a point where everyone has to just say, "Wait, I can't handle anymore uncomfortable situations. Please, just stop. Seriously." Or maybe it's just me. But whatever, I'm supposed to be talking about Appleseed: Ex Machina. not Dan in Real Life.

So, yeah, Appleseed. It was an interesting experience. I remember watching the first one, probably two years ago. I remember not recommending it to friends. Or rather, I remember not recommending it to people who like movies as a storytelling medium. I probably told most people who asked that it was visually extremely interesting, if also rather schizophrenic. But, so if you haven't seen it, and, well, you probably haven't, then I should warn you that the story sucks. This made watching the sequel a little challenging because I had more or less forgotten the story, because it sucked. Luckily, they gave a 15 second or so recap of what was going on: you know, some sort of dystopian, post-apocalypse world with an isolated utopia populated by the survivors of the devastating world war, run by synthetically designed and produced humanoids incapable of emotions and protected by cyborgs and human piloted robot suits (because there's always robot suits, or samurai, which is why that series Samurai 7 was such a breakthrough, you know, having samurai fighting robot suits, that's on the same order as pirates fighting ninjas). Anyways, I felt right back up to speed.

But, lets forget about the story for a moment (ha, I already did). That first one was an interesting experience because of the visuals. The idea behind it was to try to combine three different animation styles in one movie. There were normal, hand drawn anime visuals, computer generated visuals, and then this third thing that's a mixture of the two (which is also done with computers...I don't know what it's called, but if you've seen Richard Linklater's movies Waking Life or A Scanner Darkly, then it's kind of like that only not trippy). The result was kind of odd. Now, it's fairly common to see the robots and spaceships and stuff done with computers while the characters and backgrounds are animated. The difference here was that they thought they could switch between the two using that third style.

The best example of this would be when the main character, some cute chick who kicks lots of ass, pulls out a gun. She's an anime character, so when she pulls it out, it appears hand-drawn. However, as she pulls it out and the lights shine on it, the metal glistens, which is done using that third strategy. Then, the camera cuts to her firing it and it's fully computer generated against the anime background, and, for that matter, attached to an anime arm.

So, I've now seen the next one, but in high definition, which is clearly worth something. From the looks of it, the producer people made the command decision to cut down on the anime-style stuff and do most things either with that in-between option or full CG. The main difference, though, is that this in-between option has gotten significantly more advanced since the previous one. The result is that it's really more CG, only it ends up with a very hand drawn look. The only way I can describe it is to tell you to go check out the cut scenes from that game Rogue Galaxy that I talked about a while ago, because it used the same style in its CG cut scenes.

So, this one primarily uses that style for its characters, instead of the anime style, and then switches back and forth on the backgrounds between CG and a hand drawn style. So, it's still fairly schizophrenic, but overall the look is a bit more unified.

Anyways, it was a rather odd experience to watch it. This animation style comes out looking very, very similar to today's graphics quality on a PS3 game. I very much imagine that most of the action we see in the movie could be done in real time during gameplay on the PS3, with a fairly minimal drop in quality. So, watching it felt a lot like watching the cut scenes from a game (for that matter, the story could have come from a game too, a bad game, just to be clear). I think I preferred the style from the first one, since at least it was unique, even though it was uneven.

The other kind of weird thing to realize is that I am totally a sucker for video game girls. Because every single girl in this movie looks like she could have come out of a video game, I was pretty much thinking to myself, "Oh, she's cute" over and over and over again. It was kind of surreal. I'm not sure if it was the hair (the classic, this is CG so we're not going to waste our time trying to render millions of individual strands), or the super smooth skin, but they all reminded me of Rinoa Heartilly (FFVIII, which is not to say that I'm any particular fan of her or even that game, she would just be the video game cutie that they all reminded me of).

One cool thing about it, though, was that John Woo was involved. So, of course, there had to be doves somewhere. And, so, well, it was a robot dove sending out some signal to take control of the general population and have them attack some building or other. I smiled. Also, the actions scenes in general were cool and well choreographed and stuff. I'm almost certain I liked the action in this one a lot more (I'll admit I don't really remember the action scenes from the first one...yeah, I don't really remember anything from it). Definitely the main advantage to doing CG action movies like this is that you can really play with the camera and this did a very good job of that. Of course, there were still times when the characters seemed weightless, especially the robot suits (you have to wonder how maneuverable a giant robot suit really is, especially if that means it's capable of dodging bullets in a mid-air battle), but at least the actions was gorgeously done.

But, yeah, otherwise it wasn't too memorable. I guess if they make another one, I'll add it to my queue. I don't have the will power to stop myself. And, besides, every single female character in it is cute, that's worth something.

That is all.

Francis

Kanon and Clannad

So, you know those topics that you have something to say about, but you don't want to admit that you have something to say about them? Well, this is one of those. I think both these animes are interesting to discuss and analyze, but I would much prefer not to ever admit that I'd ever even heard of these, let alone downloaded them and watched them in their entirety. I mean, discussing these things isn't just admitting how lame I am (which I feel like I do decently often, so I don't really mind), but is basically proof that the only thing I put in my description of myself isn't even accurate (my description says that I'm a guy, but I can't imagine a guy actually watching these unless he had some really serious obsessions with Japanese schoolgirls and high school dramas...and I would prefer admitting that I'm not actually a guy to admitting that I have an obsession with Japanese schoolgirls and high school dramas...but that's probably why it's called denial).

Anyways, I started watching Clannad, then Kanon, then Clannad again, on the recommendation of the dude from Megatokyo (why do I keep admitting that I read that?). Both these series were made by the same animation studio and are based upon some semi-old Japanese highschool dating sims made by some other company (the name is something like Key, but it doesn't matter). Anyways, the Megatokyo dude recommended Clannad and Kanon while they were still releasing Clannad, so I checked it out and thought it seemed kind of interesting and then I wasted some time by watching Kanon, and then went back and watched Clannad (actually, I haven't finished it yet, I think I have like three episodes left, but I'm going to assume those episodes don't change my opinion of the show at all).

I mentioned the order that I watched them in, because it's actually relevant, by the way. When I started watching Clannad, I found it interesting because I liked the main character (who is almost the only guy we see, besides his stupid sidekick friend who can never get any girl to give him a second glance and only exists as fodder for jokes). I was impressed because the main character was actually a kind of cool dude. He was angsty and somewhat depressed, but also sarcastic and funny and more than a little mean (so, yes, he reminded me of myself). However, since at this point there were only two episodes, that's about all I knew about Clannad before I switched to Kanon.

Upon switching to Kanon, the first thing I noticed was that this main character was not nearly as interesting as the guy from Clannad. Basically, he had no personality at all. Keeping in mind that this anime originated from a Japanese high school dating sim, this made sense. I imagine the main character in the game is also pretty much a blank slate, which allows the player to imprint himself in place of the character as a way to experience the game. This doesn't really work for the TV show, though, since I prefer main characters that actually have personalities (obviously, I actually prefer TV shows where the main character has a similar personality as my own, so that I can imprint on him as a way to experience the show, but that is totally not the point).

However, while the game was targeted at boys (well, male nerds, at least), the anime is clearly targeted at girls (and guys who are obsessed with moe or whatever...and, yes, the fact that I just used the term most likely means that I'm one, but it's not true, I swear). They structured the series to follow this guy as he develops relationships with, like, 4 or 5 different girls, one at a time, and helps them with with their problems and then moves on to the next one. Each one gets her own 4-6 episode arc, where she is almost really the main character.

These girls, of course, each have unique and exciting personalities, which almost clash with the main character's own lack of such things. This makes sense, though, because I'm sure the game gave these girls those big personalities because that's what their audience wanted (probably along with some cute outfits and things like that, but the personalities are a big part of it too, I imagine, since I'm clearly not part of the target audience of the game). Ironically, the female characters all having fully developed stories and personalities fits really well with the target audience of the tv show (girls, which apparently I've decided to admit being).

So, the experience of watching Kanon is a little odd. And, well, I didn't particularly like it either. Of all the girls, there was only one that I actually liked (she had a sword and fought monsters...okay, I guess I kind of liked his cousin too, but that's just because I'm a sucker for blue hair), and the guy ends up with the least interesting and most obnoxious of the girls he interacted with. All in all, it was interesting to watch and contemplate about what worked and what didn't as the creators used the same story but targeted an entirely different audience, but it wasn't enjoyable. And this was largely because of the protagonist, which made me excited for Clannad.

But, then I watched Clannad. Clannad clearly makes a bigger effort to step away from its game roots. For one, like I mentioned early, the main character has a fun personality and can actually carry the show. Also, it doesn't really follow the individual arcs for each of the girls that I assume you would get if you pursued the girls in the game it's based off of. Instead, it primarily follows the arc of a primary love interest throughout, while sporadically inserting varying amounts of the story arcs of the other potential love interests from the game. Some of them seem to get the majority of their arcs, while others merely hint at what could have been. The idea behind this is that the story as a whole is meant to be more cohesive, I think. Personally, I liked the other strategy more.

This structuring is just frustrating because unless you actually like the primary girl (and she is, once again, of course, the least interesting and most obnoxious love interest), then the main character doesn't pay that much attention to the girl you like. Even when we do enter a multi-episode arc where he takes care of some girl, he's not doing it out of interest in her. He pretty much only has eyes for the primary love interest from the very beginning (although, I guess there are still 3 more episodes where he could change his mind...if I wish hard enough).

This sucks, though, because we get all these fully realized "meet cute"-type interactions, but they can't go anywhere because the main character only has eyes for the one girl. In the other structure, each girl actually gets to be the primary love interest for a couple episodes, before he moves on (and eventually finally settles on the least interesting and most obnoxious girl). Admittedly, since this is a tv show for general audiences, his cousin doesn't get to be a primary love interest for any time (but she does have her own arc in the game, and they do at least hint at it in the show).

On a side note, I find it interesting that the games' plots, where a guy meets a girl in need and finds a way to help her and eventually realize herself, was done to fulfill the fantasies of the shut-in male players, while the TV show is able to take that same fantasy and make it a chick flick, because it's presenting this prince of sorts who arrives and helps the girls to reach her potential or whatever (an odd empowerment fantasy of both sexes, I guess). Of course, this breaks down a little bit because in the game, the girls reward the guy by sleeping with him (I assume...also, I hear this caused a little controversy due to the plot arc with his cousin), but in the female fantasy version of it, she doesn't have to give him anything in return (or rather, she wants to, but he isn't interested, he was merely helping her).

Also, and here's where Clannad almost certainly is diverging from its game roots, we see the guy's relationships with these girls start improving him (which shows the TV show's creators are doing a better job of satisfying the target demographic with additional empowerment fantasies). He goes from being the rather angsty and somewhat depressed, but sarcastic and funny to the point of mean, guy to something a lot tamer. They try to motivate him to do something with his life and to rebuild his relationship with his family and to stop playing cruel jokes on them. As the show is coming to an end, I find myself missing what he was before the girls started improving him. But, well, I'm not in the target demographic, so it's not like my dissatisfaction matters. However, I'm would be fairly surprised if the guy had to do anything like that in the game (but, maybe it's not crazy, I don't know).

Anyways, I watched both these shows. They were interesting. At times, they were actually enjoyable, well, Clannad was at least. I'm not sure Kanon was ever really able to transcend from an interesting thought exercise to true entertainment, but Clannad's scenes where the main character is being mean were very funny. So, I've admitted it. And, well, maybe I can on being a guy (I would like that). I'm still not admitting any obsessions with schoolgirls or anything like that, though. Just to be clear.

That is all.

Francis

Couple Random Topics

So, the internet meme of the day was this website called Garfield Minus Garfield. This was a very impressive meme, considering that I think 3 of my daily addictions linked it (and considering that one is an Apple blog, one is a web comic, and one is a movie news blog, that's pretty impressive).

Anyways, I agree with them. This is something amazing and special. I have to admit I'm not sure I totally appreciate the little foreword, but that would be my only complaint. Actually, I think my other complaint might be that the author does a little too much filtering (I'm okay with some of the comics completely not making sense or having anything even resembling a punchline).

In any case, this is something special. I know nothing about art, but this could easily be one of the most intelligent and funny internet creations I've seen. It might almost qualify as art.

I love the amount of empty space that it is forced to utilize. I love that this forces the reader to fill in a story. It's so interesting to me to look at these empty spaces and realize that they're actually providing more context than whatever was originally there. With Garfield gone, these empty spaces are typically the peace that Jon disturbs with his antics, and the peace that returns once he leaves. The repeated frames become moments of introspection or simply the depressing lack of motivation to actually do something. Both are funny.

Well, either way, it's really amazing. It is way funnier than the original comic could ever hope to be. It's also significantly more depressing (reminding of Peanuts in its prime, in the best cases).

Next up is this game Rogue Galaxy. I know it's a PS2 game and I should be playing PS3 games, but there's an explanation for this. The situation was that I had gotten to the last boss in this game a long while ago, but my ancient PS2 stopped being able to read the disc (although the disc was fine).

In fact, for some reason it simply lost the ability to read any games published by Sony, which I thought was a little disappointing (although it made the decision not to buy God of War 2 quite a bit easier).

So, now that I have a PS3, I used that as an opportunity to finish the game (after getting around to buying a little USB adapter for the memory card so that I could start from that point).

Anyways, the game is just okay all around, but decently fun. I like these more action-based battle systems, and this one certainly kept me on my toes. It also helped that some of the random battles would have random challenges, with rewards, which kept battling from getting totally repetitive. It helped that the voice acting didn't suck, too. As a whole, though, this was a very generic RPG.

However, I really didn't like the end of this game. It was frustrating to me that they managed to do so much wrong, right there at the end. First, let's look at the final boss battle.

Throughout the game, the rule has been that if your entire party dies, it's game over, start at the last save point. So, anyways, players are basically taught that having their character die is completely inconsequential, since another party member can bring them back to life immediately (at full health, too). In this final battle, there are 8 (one for each party member) single boss battles. For all of these, the party size is one, so if your character dies, it's immediately game over. What's worse is that these are boss battles and the boss can easily knock off a third of your maximum life per hit (and sometimes hit's 3 times at a time).

The result was a really frustrating time, because the game hadn't actually taught me how to properly engage in a one on one fight, because that's not what the game had been about. Plus, even a single mistake forced me to start all over from the beginning of an hour long battle (which sucked, especially when the boss managed to one shot me a couple times in the very last battle).

My other complaint is that the ending is stupid. So, the cute girl who was totally into the main character and stuff leaves to become the queen of some planet or other (who cares). Anyways, good byes are said and while the credits are rolling, the party realize that they miss her and they don't want to lose her to that stupid planet. So, they decide that since they're space pirates they should go steal her back (fair enough).

And that's where it ends! We don't watch them do it. We don't control them doing it. Nothing actually happens. They just decide to do it. This can safely be called a "poor decision". This could have been a fun cool scene or it could have been a neat post-game challenge. Instead, it's just nothing. That's stupid.

Anyways, none of that really matters, since the dudes behind Persona 3 are releasing an expansion type extra thing in April. Yes, I have to get it. Yes, I have literally no other choice. So, yeah, I'm glad I got Rogue Galaxy out of the way so that I'll be prepared for Persona 3: Fes when it comes out.

Completely unrelated, I forgot to mention that I found it slightly depressing that I could kind of relate to Jon in Garfield Minus Garfield. That's probably a bad thing.

That is all.

Francis

Mushi-shi

Well, it's been quite a while since I last wrote about anime. Which is odd, considering that I've actually been watching a fair amount of anime (even odder considering that I've actually drafted a couple posts about the anime I've been watching but haven't actually posted any of it). But, well, whatever.

Anyways, I've just started watching this anime called Mushi-shi. I picked it largely because it was supposed to be amazing (I, personally, find that a compelling reason to get something from Netflix). The descriptions were all pretty vague and seemed to suggest that you either "got it" and loved it or you'd think it was boring. It also seemed to suggest that only cool, sophisticated, thoughtful people would get it (note that this was a possibly more compelling reason for me to check it out).

Well, I've actually only watched the first three episodes, but, all I can say is wow. While I can definitely see this not appealing to the typical anime watching crowd (there's no ridiculous fighting, no unending stories, no filler, no japanese schoolgirls, or even silly romantic drama), it still manages to remind me of all the great reasons for watching anime.

First of all, this anime is clearly heavily influenced by Hayao Miyazaki's work, which is probably why it doesn't have any of the trademarks of anime (since I think Miyazaki is kind of against most of the content of typical anime). The difference is that this isn't targeting kids (which is not to say that Miyazaki's works are anything short of incredible viewing experiences for people of all ages, of course). No, the difference is that this is about exploring and living with spirituality, while most of Miyazaki's work with spirituality (Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away) are more about discovering it.

Mushi-shi is set in a world where there are spirits and they have effects on everyday life. They are neither good nor bad, they just are. And each episode is simply dealing with a situation where the presence and actions of the spirits causes a problem, and a wise traveler who understands the spiritual world comes to reconcile the situation and make peace. And that's all. That is literally all that happens.

And it's beautiful.

Gorgeous, really.

Watching it just made me want to shout for joy. It's easy to forget that there are people out there, working hard to create true works of art. And it is both humbling and moving to see what can only be described as a masterpiece.

So far, every episode has nearly brought me to tears as the end credits roll. It's not because it's sad. Or because I'm a wuss (well, it's not entirely because I'm a wuss). It's because the sense of peace and understanding that pervades each episode and which comes to a head by the end is simply overwhelming. This anime is good. When I say that, I don't mean that it's of above average quality (although it is, of course). No, I mean it as in this anime is a source of goodness in a world that can be dark and full of evil.

This is the type of thing that everyone should watch. If I had to pick only one anime to show a random person, this one would be it. Because this is the one that would impart a positive lesson. This is the one that would improve their life in a way that is probably unique to anime.

Cowboy Bebop is still, and will likely remain, my favorite anime of all time. I remember watching it and doubting I would ever be able to really enjoy watching anime again because no other animes could compare to Cowboy Bebop. I was wrong. I really enjoy watching Mushi-shi. For entirely different reasons than why I liked watching Cowboy Bebop, but that's okay. They both can bring me to tears; they are both masterpieces of great artists.

So, yeah, Mushi-shi is generating some fairly positive reviews in the places that review these things. And, well, I just wanted to say that those positive reviews are not only right, they're selling it short. This is a landmark work. And I feel lucky to have gotten to witness it, and I look forward to sharing it with others. All others.

That is all.

Francis

Takashi Shimizu

So, for Halloween, I've been watching some horror movies. I try to be fair and watch a decent variety of movies, but I have a slightly different definition of variety than most people.

So, in the spirit of variety, I checked out: 1 big budget zombie movie (28 Weeks Later), 1 low-budget, Australian (well, it's probably from New Zealand) zombie-sheep movie (Black Sheep), 1 low-budget Japanese ghost movie (Reincarnation), 1 low-budget American ghost movie (Unrest), 1 big-budget Japanese-American ghost movie (The Grudge 2), and 1 low budget '80s John Carpenter ghost movie (The Fog). Oh, I guess I also rewatched Blade II and saw 30 Days of Night in the theaters.

I think that's a pretty decent amount of variety. Admittedly, I still have 3 more horror movies coming in on my queue (a big-budget Japanese ghost movie, Ju-On 2, a low budget independent zombie movie, Fido, and the original zombie-comedy: "The Return of the Living Dead"). Once those come in, the variety level kind of sinks a little bit.

Anyways, if you were paying attention, you might have noticed three different Japanese ghost movies, of varying budget size. I picked these three for a very specific reason. The director is named Takashi Shimizu, and, well, I think he is something special, and so I keep watching his movies, typically against my better judgment.

It all started years ago. Back before I regularly watched Japanese horror movies. My brother and I had seen The Ring and had agreed that it was pretty much one of the scariest things we'd ever seen, bar none. However, being lazy, isolationist bigots, we never bothered to see Ringu (because we couldn't really imagine it being better than The Ring). Then, we heard about Ju-On. Apparently, this movie was even scarier than Ringu. And, well, in that case, we had to see it.

It was only playing on one screen in a theater way away from home and the earliest show we could make was pretty late (like 10-ish). So, we went and saw it. And it totally blew our minds.

We honestly weren't even sure if we liked it, when we got out. We agreed that it was crazy freaking scary (at least on par with The Ring). But, we had no clue what was going on through at least 60% of the movie. My complaint was that basically every single victim in the movie was either a pretty, young Japanese woman, or a Japanese Schoolgirl. So, they all pretty much looked the same (plus, many of them were supposed to be related, so they REALLY all looked the same). Plus, the movie skips around through time (without being kind enough to tell you), which can really play hell with the viewer, since then you're not really sure if the character you're seeing is a new one who looks just like another victim, or that previous victim in the past.

Anyways, it was crazy. And most of the credit goes to Takashi Shimizu. In researching this masterpiece, I learned that it all actually started out as two direct-to-video movies that were crazy freaking scary. The movie, in fact, is more like a sequel to those (which explains some things associated with the ridiculous amounts of confusion involved in watching the movie).

What I liked about the movie, though, was how it played with the viewers. It is clear from the beginning that entering the haunted house is sealing your own death. There is no escape. But, the ghost toys with the victims. A lot. Especially at the beginning, it acts like there are rules and if the characters had just made the right calls, they might have survived. Then, we do get to see later characters make the right calls. In fact, we see characters completely lose their minds, doing everything they can trying to avoid the ghost's wrath, but it's always all for naught. The slow erosion of hope over the course of the movie is totally cool.

Takashi Shimizu was also recruited to do the American version (and the sequel to the American version). These are both really disappointing. The American version is still set in Japan (which is a weird call, but it works since they use the same actors to play the ghosts), but the main character is a foreign exchange student or something. Yeah, it's already lame.

Anyways, my complaint with it was that they regurgitate the exact same scares, but got rid of anything resembling confusion or the sense of losing your mind or everything else that is key to Japanese horror. The result, not surprisingly, was just stupid.

I recently watched the American sequel (and the Japanese sequel is arriving soon). I actually liked this one more, than the previous American one. It did manage to capture a lot of what was best in Ju-On (while totally screwing some other stuff up, but beggars can't be choosy). It did play with the viewers sense of time a little bit. It did include characters going insane trying to keep themselves safe. It even included the people all around a marked person going crazy as the rage of the ghost just turns everyone around the target into murderous and suicidal psychopaths. That whole section was, really, an excellent addition to the story (as the ghost follows a victim back to America).

It was for scenes like that, that I bothered to watch it at all (hoping against hope for something half that awesome). Thankfully, Takashi Shimizu delivered. I wasn't too surprised, though, because he delivered in both his other low budget flings I've checked out as well (Marebito and Reincarnation). Marebito does a great job of following the main character's trip into insanity (although it doesn't do too much else right). Reincarnation doesn't have the scares of Ju-On, but it does a great job of playing with the audience's sense of reality and time (where we start to really wonder whether the stuff that's happening in reality or in her ghost-inspired dreams is the bigger threat to her life...the answer: both).

So, yeah, I'm going to keep checking out his movies, because I think they embody the best of Japanese horror. The good guys probably aren't going to win (and they might not even be the good guys). The scares are going to be simple, but effective thanks to the excellent mood he is able to generate (an example of excellent mood, but no scares would be the Japanese version of Pulse, not the one starring Veronica Mars and not directed by Takashi Shimizu). But, most importantly, I'll be challenged as a viewer. I'll be able to try to formulate rules that the ghost follows or explanations of what's going on and I'll know that there's more than one right answer, because he's toying with me just as the ghosts are toying with their victims. And I enjoy that.

That is all.

Francis

PS - I'm currently faced with a tough decision, since the one movie he's made that I haven't seen, is the third in a series called Tomie. Reviews say you really need to see the earlier ones if you want to be able to follow, but that his is the best by far (not surprising). On the other hand, the reviews also say you need to be Japanese to understand most of it anyways, so I could just ignore those recommendations (so maybe I can get away with just watching his... or maybe I should just rent the whole series... or maybe I should move to Japan and study the culture and then watch the whole series... or maybe not).

Guitar Hero III

So, Guitar Hero III came out today. And, um, I bought it. A couple weeks ago, I bought numbers 1 and 2 as well. I intend to never touch the "Rocks the 80s" collection. And, well, I have to admit, my feelings are mixed. On the one hand, it's more songs. And, well, more songs are always good (except in the aforementioned "Rocks the 80s" case). On the other hand, this is the first Guitar Hero that didn't involve Harmonix. And, well, it shows.

Let's start with what I like. I like that many of the songs are original recordings, although it is significantly less than I had initially expected (almost everything before 1990 is covered, it feels like). I like that it brings Cream and Stevie Ray Vaughn back (my favorite artists from number 1). I like that the final performance location is Hell. I kind of wish they called it that, though. Or, well, anything besides Lou's Inferno. I mean, seriously, how is preceding the word Inferno with Lou even kind of okay (unless it's an incredibly vague reference to Lou's Records, which is a popular record store in southern California, but I kind of doubt it). They should have just called it The Underworld, or something. I really liked that they gave the year the song originally came out. I think that's one of the only really classy additions. It really gives you a feeling of history when you can kind of see who was playing when, and I totally appreciate that.

Hmm, I think that's almost everything I can come up with. I guess I kind of like the Japanese Schoolgirl guitarist, Midori, except she doesn't really look like a Japanese Schoolgirl, which seems to defeat the whole purpose of having a Japanese Schoolgirl guitarist. Oh, I also think it's totally awesome that we can equip our characters with Guitar Hero guitars (I think it's cool to have my character playing with the same thing I'm playing, but maybe I'm weird).

There, that was a decent amount of stuff to like, right? Oh, wait, I also liked the quote "Real guitarists don't sit on the couch". That was pretty awesome.

Anyways, the dislikes. The new art style is pretty high up there in the dislikes. Guitar Hero typically is pretty cartoony, but this one seems to take itself a lot more seriously. This starts to come across kind of weird when you look at the completely ridiculously over-the-top costumes available. I think they had to do this so that the boss characters (REAL guitarists that battle you during incredibly boring sets that they wrote specifically for the game) wouldn't look completely out of place, so the result is that everyone looks like a normal proportioned person and the boss characters look really boring (since they don't have costumes of the same level of ridiculousness as the main characters). Also, the audience comes across as incredibly monotonous and boring. I mean, they're just there to make you feel awesome, but when they all look like skaters from the Tony Hawk series, you can't really bring yourself to care about them.

Next, I really don't like how this feels a lot more like a rhythm game. Guitar Hero is supposed to be targeting the people who thought that DDR was lame, right? It's supposed to make you feel like a rockstar, right? So, why should a rockstar give a crap about the length of his current string of notes?! I really don't need to be informed every time I hit 50 notes in a row. Normally, the only time you see words over the main area is when you get star power. That was invasive, but okay because it made you feel accomplished and ready to really ROCK. Getting 50 notes in a row means nothing to me.

I imagine this nuisance as a little nerdy guy backstage keeping a tally and then running onstage to let me know about it in the middle of the song. Plus, he takes so long to get onstage that by the time he reaches me and starts bugging me, it's not relevant anymore (seriously, I swear it takes like 5 seconds for the letters to appear, I know this because I've screwed up the 51st note before and then, a brief moment later it told me I had a 50 note streak going). That whole mechanic of streaks is a rhythm game construct that isn't relevant or necessary for this game. And it's annoying.

Obviously, I didn't really like the boss battle very much either. It just seemed, pointless. It's a total gimme, to get you excited about it in multiplayer, but I can't imagine it being all that much fun with another person either. Face off in Guitar Hero has been about showing that you're the better guitarist. That you can pull off the crazy solo that the other guy can't. Battle mode proves nothing. It's not about rocking out, and so it just doesn't feel right in Guitar Hero (I mean, that's a classic puzzle game mechanic, for goodness sake, and I don't really associate Guitar Hero with Tetris).

But, really, my main dislike is just where Guitar Hero is going. The box didn't even advertise the presence of Cream or Stevie Ray Vaughn (it was just a pleasant surprise for me). There was also a lot more...metal, which is not really a fun genre to listen to (although it's probably because it has such crazy solos). Also, there was a lot of songs from 2005-2007. I thought it was funny that one of the little loading quotes was "Let's start with our new single so we can get that piece of shit out of the way". But then, you play the latest singles from Muse and The Killers and Queens of the Stone Age and you're just like, "Wait, I though we agreed those were crap, so why are you making me play them?" It's just, frustrating.

Why is Matchbook Romance in this game, but not Led Zeppelin? Where is Jimi Hendrix? Why is there so little of the great guitarists from the last generation? How about some blues? You know, maybe B.B. King? Or someone a little less renowned like Muddy Waters or Buddy Guy? They're still alive and kicking. B.B. King would be an incredibly awesome boss battle. Have him play something and dare the player to try to play it back at him.

I know that the argument is: That's what the downloadable content is for. And, yes, I understand. But, it's just, not exciting when everything is super fast punk that tests your rhythm or grating metal guitars that test your sanity (sprinkled with the occasional classic pop song, so your mom can play too). I don't know, I'm just not that into it.

Also, did they really have to make hammer-ons and pull-offs even easier? I'll be the first to admit that the first Guitar Hero made hammer-ons and pull-offs very tough, almost to the point of not fun (you have to seriously practice them to be any good at them at all, which I'm not, yet). Guitar Hero II made them easier by saying, push at the right time. I thought this was a fair compromise. Number 3 just says, be holding it when the note comes. I'm serious. That's all you have to do. It has this whole feeling of completely unreality about it (like this note magically plays). It's honestly, really stupid.

I swear I'm not being a purist here. I just feel that a large part of Guitar Hero has always been about feeling like you're playing the guitar and rocking out. We know it's just a simulation, but playing the Guitar shouldn't be easy. It should test your timing, and this doesn't. What's worse, though, is how this changes the mechanics. They literally just throw hammer-ons in the middle of anywhere, because they've completely abandoned reality and it doesn't matter anymore.

Hmm, I think my bitching is starting to go a little long. Most reviews seem to be pretty positive in a "it doesn't disappoint" sort of way. One of the common complaints is the presence of totally inane in-game advertisements (there's an AXE body spray branded guitar). Which is a fair complaint, to be honest, but pretty expected from the dudes behind most of the Tony Hawk series.

In summary, I didn't think it was as fun as the earlier ones, which is too bad. It kept most of what the others did right, but lost some things and didn't bring anything new that was fun. So, yeah.

That is all.

Francis

Persona 3

Okay, I've spent well over 70 recorded hours of my life on this game (which is a low estimate since it only counts the play time I kept, and this is the type of game that requires multiple save states). It's probably time to write some sort of reaction to it, if only to try to explain why a game like this can so thoroughly take over my entire life (not that this is all that hard).

Anyways, Persona 3. It's published by Atlus, who I trust because they also published Disgaea and Trauma Center. All these games have poor graphics that it made up for through very expressive hand drawn pictures that go along with the dialogue (not that this is an unusual strategy for RPGs). Also, the voice acting and writing quality is typically well above average (although I used the Japanese voices for Disgaea, but that's not important).

Persona 3 is actually included within the Shin Megami Tensei umbrella, which includes a variety of other RPGs as well, all of which stand out for a variety of reasons. The primary thing they all share is that they are typically a little disturbing compared to the average RPG. Topics like cannibalism and suicide are not unusual in these games.

So, what is the first thing Persona 3 shows you, during the opening video when you turn on the game? "Memento mori". And then a silhouette of a character holding a gun to their head and pulling the trigger (and the eyes suddenly opening in pain as the right side of the head explodes). All this is set to some random upbeat J-pop song. Hell of a first impression.

However, it's not the first impression that got me to continue allowing my life to waste away while my entire focus was on this game. It's the gameplay. And this game, in many ways, revolutionized the genres it borrows from, to make them more than capable of taking over my life.

There are two keys genres where the gameplay arises from: classic dungeon crawling RPGs and Japanese High School Sims. Intuitively, these genres are not related. Also, intuitively, neither of these genres is particularly fun or popular outside Japan (okay, dungeon crawlers are kind of popular, I guess).

To be clear, dungeon crawlers are the kind of RPG that use fighting and leveling purely for the sake of fighting and leveling. Diablo would be a classic example of a dungeon crawler, but it used the point-and-click gameplay mechanic (instead of separate battles). The point being, you are meant to simply continue playing through Diablo's randomly generated floors and leveling your characters, purely for the sake of getting stronger. There is little other reward for your troubles. This genre commands a fairly hardcore audience in Japan that is willing to dedicate significant amounts of time to a game, simply for the accomplishment involved with doing this (think of those people that have to create level 99 pokemon, or climb everest for that matter). I will admit to the fact that I do sometimes get addicted to this type of game...

Japanese High School sims are basically only popular in Japan, to my knowledge (note that this is different from dating sims, which are ever-so-slightly popular elsewhere). Really, the only "fun" involved with these games is in accessing the different stories and cut scenes. These games main appeal comes from the idea of simulating life, except that you're allowed to save and try a different response. I'm sure this is fulfilling lots of fantasies, but whatever (it reminds me of the ending cinematic for Ubisoft's Prince of Persia, where the Prince kisses the beautiful princess, gets slapped, then reverses time a little ways so it never happened and instead he says something clever and walks away into the sunset, all classy-like). Anyways, that's all these games typically have to offer (although they can get pretty complicated, so I'm not saying they're necessarily easy...think along the lines of, like, Myst-type puzzles, only with more Japanese schoolgirls). And, I'm going on the record saying I'm not really into this type of game, I swear. I don't care if you don't believe me, since I know it's true and that's good enough for me (don't ask why I know things like the above couple sentences, too).

So, Persona 3 did something amazing. It combined these genres into something way better than either one. Dungeon crawlers suffer from a severe amount of monotony. It's kind of inherent to the system. High School sims suffer from a lot of problems as well, such as: unreality, lame stories, the utter pointlessness of it all, the lowering of personal self-esteem for even getting close to the game...you get the idea. Persona 3 eliminates almost all these problems (there is still a little monotony, but it's fairly optional).

Summed up simply, during the day, in game, your character goes to school and at night him and his friends slowly battle their way up a seemingly infinite tower. At school, you do things like go to class, hang out with friends, participate in clubs, and try to date girls. There's a limited amount of time to do most of this stuff, so you have to divide your time wisely. At night, you do things like fight bad guys (or stay home and study or stay home and sleep to recover from the previous long night).

Here's where it's cool, though. There are two ways to power up your spells and stats. By gaining experience, you can slowly increase your stats and learn new moves. Alternatively, the activities, friendships, and relationships that you nurture at school can be translated into very significant power ups to your character at night. In fact, there are far greater potential gains from a fully developed friendship than would be available without it.

This provides two keys answers. First, there is a reason to care about your friends and their problems. If you can say the right things and help them out, then it will make you more powerful at night. This makes the high school sim aspect of the game a lot more interesting because there's actual personal awards for your accomplishments. Similarly, because this is where you can reap significant awards, you don't have to waste massive amounts of time leveling your characters at night, which makes avoiding the monotony that plagues the dungeon crawler genre a lot more feasible.

It's brilliant. The result is that over the course of the game, I can continue getting stronger and preparing to face tougher bad guys, without have to spend hours leveling up against the current guys. Once I've unlocked the way to the next area, I just have to hang out with the right people to improve whatever I need improved. Plus, the high school sim doesn't feel as arbitrary, because there's actually a strategy involved. As an example, let's just say I've dumped girls who were improving aspects that I didn't need.

Completely unrelated, I'm glad I didn't have to explain myself to her, I can imagine a conversion like that in real life being a little awkward: "The spells I'm learning from our relationship are weak and useless, so I'm dumping you for this nerdy chick who'll teach me crazy awesome instant kill spells. I hope you understand. It's nothing personal. We'll still be friends, right?"

So, yeah, that's what I've spent my life doing for the past couple weeks (don't read as dumping girls to find ones that give me more powerful spells). The game is really interesting and innovative, which is really what blows me away about it. I sincerely hope more games copy this type of mechanic, since it works so well.

That is all.

Francis

Oh Dear God! or The Battle Royale Post

Similar to Transformers, watching this movie elicited a response so strong, I started feeling the need to create a blog, just so that I could write about it. Not that this is relevant...

I remember adding the movie to my Netflix queue, because there was some stupid Stone Cold Steve Austin movie playing in theaters that was getting poor reviews. A large percentage of the reviews compared it to Battle Royale (typically, unfavorably, although since many critics didn't like Battle Royale, either, it's a little less clear cut). So, because I'm stupid, I decided to rent it.

And I saw it. Alone. On a Sunday afternoon. Afterwards, I no longer felt capable of interacting with fellow human beings on any meaningful level. I took a cold shower. I didn't feel any better. I went to church. Still didn't really feel well. I went to bed early (didn't sleep too well, either). Obviously, I've since managed to recover, somehow.

Battle Royale was crazy. Like super crazy. Like the kind of crazy that makes you go crazy not only by witnessing it, but just by thinking about it hours, days, even weeks later. This was some serious shit. Seriously serious.

Here's a quick summary: In the future, the shit hits the fan in Japan. Youth violence is on the rise, so the response is to have an annual "battle royale" where a single class, randomly chosen, from a trouble school will be sent to an island, armed, and told to kill each other. Last one standing gets to go home, and only one is allowed to return.

The movie is Japanese, and I have to admit that helps. They did an amazing job of getting a cast of kids who really look like they're only 13 or 14 years old (insert comment noting that I can't really differentiate ages of Asians, and so I just believed the given age by default). It also helps that they're not the best actors, because this movie celebrated the over-acting and cheesy dialogue of 13 year olds brilliantly.

The premise sounds ridiculous. It sounds over-the-top. Most people wrote the movie off as the worst kind of exploitation possible, especially with such young actors. A depressing number of people recommend this movie to others because they only see it as exploitation. I don't know what's wrong with them.

The movie is not about exploitation. It's about life during those terrible developmental years called adolescence. It's about the stupid things we believed when we were that age, and all the things that seemed so important until we finally grew up a little bit. Because, these kids don't get to grow up a little bit.

The movie is very violent. But none of the violence is cool. This violence is scary, unwanted, and inexplicable. We're treated to friends turning on each other with only a moments notice. And all of them are crying in fear and shock at what they are doing. But, friendships in middle school do sometimes dissolve at a moments notice. The only difference, is that these dissolutions are permanent. Screaming your sorrow to the corpses of your friends does not bring them back to you.

Of course, as these are middle schoolers, nearly all of them want to join with their current crushes. Over and over again, we see the children die in the arms of their current lovers, pledging their undying love. Is it cheesy? Of course. But the idea is that they haven't learned any other form of interacting with each other. To them, this is how they want to die. There are no thoughts of parents, or home, merely the person who is so important to them right now (and would typically be forgotten in just a few weeks if this were school).

That's what this movie's about. And it's unforgiving. By the end, the emotional weight of the characters is something almost tangible and finishing the movie is challenging. I'm not even sure it's worth it.

So, who would I actually recommend this movie to? Well, definitely my enemies. They totally deserve to experience that. Hmm, not too many other segments of the population. People who are heartless will probably be alright. I think the safes way to go is: people who liked Oldboy. If you don't know what that is, then Battle Royale is not for you.

So, if my description of Battle Royale caught your interest, then go find Oldboy. Then, and only then, should you seriously consider going out and finding this movie (and, personally, I would probably recommend just avoiding both of them). I guess if you need another Asian movie barometer (or you want a movie that's in the same language as Battle Royale, I don't know why) then you could also go find Suicide Club. If you still want to see Battle Royale, then more power to you. You've been warned.

That is all.

Francis