AWESOME ENGINE » Film

Leeds International Film Festival has Detroit Metal City and the first installment in the 20th Century Boys trilogy playing this year on the 15th & 16th November.

22nd Leeds International Film Festival

20th Century Boys 2 trailer

Brack — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:49:45 +0000

Which one now seems more like a parody of Guy Ritchie?

Brack — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:36:30 +0000

—

When they showed the Rock N’ Rolla trailer in front of Dark Knight, you could hear laughs of derision flitter through the audience, like a sarcastic butterfly. And this was quite a small, first showing of the day audience.

Why So Long?

Brack — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:57:17 +0000

Saw The Dark Knight yesterday.

* Too long by at least one set piece. The sheer number of them adds to the drag I experienced around the halfway/two-thirds mark. Maybe it could have lost the Mister Reyes(Reece?) subplot and the ensuing set piece. However, my third problem might be more of the cause of its moments of drag than the number of set pieces.
* BATVOICE.
* Doesn’t trust the audience to suspend their disbelief, and so eats up it’s running time rationalising stuff, particularly in the Bat-Bond sequences.
* BATVOICE.
* Action direction still seems to be ashamed of the BATCOSTUME, possibly with good reason. It certainly looked like it didn’t fit properly in the interrogation scene.
* BATVOICE. If anything, it was worse than Batman Begins. And it sounded different from the trailer. Did they watch the trailer and think, the BATVOICE doesn’t sound dreadful enough, let’s go and add some more dreadfulness in post production?

Despite all that, it’s a good film. In fact when it’s at its best, it makes those points seem worse than they would in a lesser film.

MEME TIME: EXHAUSTO LIST 3000: FILM EDITION

Brack — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:26:04 +0000

Same thing, this time for films. Via Matthew J. Brady

Pick a favourite film from every year you’ve been alive.

1975 – Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1976 – Rocky
1977 – Star Wars
1978 – Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1979 – The Muppet Movie
1980 – Airplane!
1981 – Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
1982 – Blade Runner
1983 – Videodrome
1984 – This Is Spinal Tap *
1985 – Better Off Dead
1986 – True Stories
1987 – A Chinese Ghost Story *
1988 – The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
1989 – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
1990 – Wild at Heart
1991 – Delicatessen
1992 – Porco Rosso
1993 – Fong Sai-yuk
1994 – Drunken Master 2 *
1995 – Get Shorty
1996 – Swingers
1997 – Jackie Brown
1998 – The Big Lebowski
1999 – Election *
2000 – Best In Show *
2001 – The Royal Tenenbaums *
2002 – 24 Hour Party People
2003 – Melvin Goes To Dinner
2004 – Mind Game
2005 – Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
2006 – The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
2007 – No Country For Old Men
2008 – Iron Man

* These years were tough to pick a favourite film from, as they were particularly strong for films.

EDIT: I’d forgotten No Country for Old Men was a 2007 film due to how long it took to show up in my local cinema.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Brack — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:54:04 +0000

This ran at the BFI yesterday, so I took the opportunity to see the film on a big screen. For some reason they moved it to the main NFT1 screen, possibly it was doing better in ticket sales than they thought as the theatre was packed. Regardless, it was superior experience to whichever of the theatres I saw Mind Game in a couple of years ago, I wasn’t squashed up against the side of a wall. Also, unlike Mind Game, it was actually screened off a film print rather than a DVD. Unfortunately the film print had seen better days, the start of the film had a lot of noise and dirt on the print, and there were glitches here and there later in the movie. Nothing too detrimental, but a little annoying at the start.

Watching the film with a full audience reasserted in my mind that Mamoru Hosoda is the anime director that people have bemoaned is lacking – someone who can create excellent films, with broad appeal, whose surname isn’t Miyazaki. And he does it without aping the Ghibli style. Hosoda’s style is distinctly recognisable as his own. For awhile I wasn’t sure if the look of his films was his own, or that of his frequent collaborator Takaaki Yamashita, but seeing some of Yamashita’s work away from Hosoda, makes me think it’s firmly Hosoda’s vision that we see on screen.

Hosoda’s work frequently uses shots that frame the world in a way that simulates the point of view of someone standing in that world (though not a character POV). Lots of wide shots, low horizons and high skys. Often, rather than changing shots, or using tracking shots and close ups, we see a scene act out within that shot. Late in the film he plays with the idea of a tracking shot, using it as he would any of his other shots, by having a character move within the frame of the tracking shot, effectively outrunning the speed of the “camera”.

Also he takes great care in positioning characters within a shot, drawing your focus to them, even when there is a lot going on in the background. Hosoda is interested in rooting his animated world in reality, even if the story involves time travel, digital monsters or super-powered pirates, and here he gets to do that to it’s fullest extent yet. Often shots are full of bustling human life meaning that, unlike much anime, the characters don’t live in a vacuum of their own existence. And the movements of the main characters themselves aren’t some idealised, smooth version of human movement, they are clumsy, bumbling and rambunctious.

Story-wise, this is my favourite sort of science fiction, where a single idea is all that separates the fictional world from our own. It is a charming and light concoction, indeed, it is commented within the film that it’s good that the ability to time travel is used so trivially. The performances of the three leads are for the most part good, though Riisa Naka as Makoto is far better at the comedic aspects of her role than the emotional parts. Her crying really left a lot to be desired (a distressed walrus springs to mind) but there’s only really one scene that comes up in.

Easily the best animated film of 2006, it’s good that Kadokawa & Bandai have been attempting to give it the international recognition it deserves.

DETROIT METAL CITY – Full Trailer

Brack — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:12:48 +0000

20th Century Boys Promo Clip

Brack — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:41:01 +0000

via Twitch

Speed Racer

Brack — Sat, 10 May 2008 15:38:28 +0000

The Casa Cristo 5000 section of this film works marvelously. It is for all intents and purposes a live-action episode of Speed Racer. Speed drives the Mach 5, he wears a blue shirt and little red neckerchief and colourful villains try and run him off the road in elaborate ways. It’s simple, easy to follow and a whole lot of fun.

So it’s a shame the rest of the film doesn’t have that consistency of vision. The two track races we get that bookend the film play like video game visions of XTREME FUTURE SPORTS~! The visit to villain Royalston’s HQ plays like Willy Wonka’s Automotive Factory. The whole first third of the film just drags despite some great actors doing good work.

And there’s the abiding sense that there’s been two different versions of this film made and scenes from each have been stuck together to make this mess. This mainly comes from the cars our hero drives.

He starts with the Mach 6, but in the Casa Cristo drives the Mach 5 (Speed’s traditional car from the cartoon), then late in the film they BUILD the Mach 6, because they don’t have a car for the final race, even though the Mach 5 was OK in the last scene we saw it in. Which leaves you wondering, was that first race a flashback – which it wasn’t.

Now there is an explanation that can make sense of this, but it’s not obvious from the film. Instead I was left with the feeling that at some point a version of the film was made where the Mach 5 was the car and at another point a version was made where the Mach 6 was the car. Because I can’t get my head around some writing a plot this muddled and muddy deliberately, particularly when the actual dialogue, and how individual scenes play out, works well.

Oh wait, these were the guys behind the Matrix trilogy. I’ve answered my own question.

I’ve read the V for Vendetta director (whose name I forget, James Teigue?) acted as second unit director and I’d be interested to see if he was responsible for the Casa Cristo section, as it really felt like the work of someone different from the rest of the film.

It’s not worth going to the cinema for as it’s too long, and you feel the longness at the start of the film rather than the end. But it’s worth catching as a rental when it’s out on DVD, the art direction, the performances (the cast is great from top to toe, everyone seemingly cast for having great cartoony faces, even Matthew Fox’s wooden face is great for cartoony stoicism) and the whole middle section are worth watching it for.

In the meantime, watch these instead:

Speed Racer Goes Crazy

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Ghostface Killah – Daytona 500

I just remembered the 4th trailer I saw with Iron Man

Brack — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:36:56 +0000

…that had left such an impact I’d completely forgotten it for 4 days. That new M. Night Shyamalan film. I still don’t recall actually what it was called. “Marky Mark and the Panicky Bunch” maybe? Related posts:Iron Man Lum-A-Day 074 – Ghost Story! Old Man Willow! UK Anime Releases For 4th June 2007 (04/07/07) Related posts:

Iron Man

Brack — Sun, 04 May 2008 18:31:39 +0000

Hopefully the sparseness of posting will be over now. I’ve been feeling grotty and been laying low for the past couple of weeks, partly self induced as I wasn’t taking the medication I’d been given in the manner it was meant to be taken. So… howzabout that Iron Man film?

Right now I’m of an opinion that this is the best superhero movie we have. It’s at once true to the source material and accessible. And above all, it’s fun all the way through.

The fun is infectious, most of it emanating from Robert Downey Jr. Now the first two Spider-Man films are pretty fun, but when it gets serious the fun drains from the film. As good as Batman Begins is, a lot of the film is poe-faced, there’s warmth there in Caine and Oldman’s performances for sure, but it feels more worthy than a fun comic book film.

Even when Tony Stark is at his lowest, Iron Man maintains a sense of fun. The key to this in the characters. Downey deserves the bulk of the credit, particularly for making the pre-heroic Stark so likeable even though he’s an irresponsible ass. Which is key, as it stops Pepper Potts and Rhodey from looking horrible for being friends with him. Even when he was a “merchant of death” he’s so charismatic and full of fun that you’d want to be his friend.

A film that wanted to be pretend it wasn’t a comic book film would have had Stark become wracked with guilt to point of becoming a sour faced grump after his road to Damascus moment. What makes Iron Man fun, and thus great, is that the heroic Stark’s approach to changing the world is exactly same as his approach to having fun and making money.

One thing that I’ve not seen commented on much is how good the physical effects are. Stan Winston’s crew do a exemplary job on the physical armours and they blend seamlessly with the animated effects. The fact that there was physical versions of the armour makes them feel a lot more solid than a solely CGI effect might have given us. The general level of props and set dressing is splendid too. It’s particularly noticeable as the film doesn’t actually use that many locations – a great deal of the movie is Stark in his workshop essentially talking to himself.

I’ve read that plenty has been cut out, a lot of Rhodey’s scenes apparently fell by the wayside and the Ghostface cameo isn’t there any longer (we do get a new Ghostface track though in the scene on the plane), but by making the film roughly 2 hours and focusing it firmly around Downey works wonders. It’s a rare scene in Iron Man that doesn’t have Downey as part of it and he’s the glue that holds it all together.

***

The trailers we got with it were Crystal Skull, Hulk and Speed Racer. There may have been a fourth one but I can’t recall it.

The Hulk trailer was the first one, which thrilled me the first time I saw it, but left me cold on a second viewing. I think the direction and effects may be the weak spot here, the story looks a reasonable reworking of Abomination’s story, and there’s plenty of good actors in it. Norton seems to act himself small and timid as Banner which is pretty impressive.

The Crystal Skull trailer came off incredibly leaden. No shots were cinematically exciting and it has the aura of un-neccessity about it.

Speed Racer at least had me feeling “YEAH! CINEMA!”. Given past experiences of the Warchowskis, I suspect the story will be weak, but the visuals great. But I was fine with Dick Tracy and Cutey Honey live action films for the same reason, so I’ll be giving this a watch next week.

Detriot Metal City OAV – TAF08 trailer

Brack — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:18:03 +0000

Uploaded by saueki

This looks a very good capturing of the art style, similar to how well Sexy Commando and Cromartie were animated. I wonder who is directing, as it would be an ideal project for Akitaro Daichi’s comic timing. Detroit Metal City as a whole really needs a proper English release, the parodies of heavy metal and aspects of the music industry are pretty much familiar wherever in the world you are. Hopefully the live action film might be the thing to kick start it Tokyopop or Dark Horse’s interest (I don’t think anyone else has licensed Young Animal titles – am I wrong?). Sharing a star with the live action Death Note has brought the live action film onto world cinema sites radar, so a US release seems a definite possibility.

Five Awesome Links

Brack — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:46:59 +0000

Ben Ettinger writes far more than we have any right to expect to see in the English language on the Tiger Mask anime.

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog dicusses “midcore” gaming

Twitch brings the noise on 20th Century Boys.

Cod Liver Elf

Brack — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:28:22 +0000

At first I was dis-inclined to see Cloverfield. “Viral” marketing can easily come off as obnoxious, though this isn’t necessarily due to the marketing itself. Often it’s down to the people who buy into the marketing working themselves up into an annoying lather, alienating those who aren’t into the marketing to the eventual product.

Also I think there’s a risk that by putting creative efforts into satellites of the main product, you can end up losing focus on what you want people to pay for. As Lost is a good example of a show with lost focus and all sorts of orbiting ephemera, and this film is coming from the same production company I wasn’t all that eager to see it.

However, on reading it was only 77 mins long once you ignore credits, then it became a much better prospect.

As a monster movie filmed from the POV of the fleeing civilians it works marvelously. All that internet gumph that they marketed it with? Forget it, you never feel like you are missing a piece of the puzzle. A monster attacks New York, people flee. That’s all you need to know. Quibbles are minor, it can be a little too cute on occasion – having the cameraman being called Hud for instance – and more obvious 9/11 references are a little cringeworthy. But the thing is over so fast that they don’t have the time to hang around and annoy you. The lack of explanation for why the monster exists and is attacking New York is also not a problem for the same reason. Had it lasted longer and not given you an explanation, then you might have grounds to complain, but for what it delivers – no explanation is needed.

I do wonder how people who had bought into the internet marketing games reacted to it – was it the payoff that they were expecting/wanted? Did following the trail of internet gubbins add anything to what was on screen?

A HAPPY MOMENT

Brack — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:13:22 +0000

Beowulf

Brack — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 17:05:55 +0000

I went to see it this morning.

It’s bad.

The dialogue is fine, and vocally the performances are pretty good. The plot however takes a fair few liberties with the story, particularly in the last 2/3rds of the film. Seeing as the story has lasted since the 8th century, is there really any need to tamper with the original plot?

The motion capture is pretty horrid. Characters who don’t have big bushy beards particularly suffer from look like inhuman mannequins. Movement, particular rapid movement looks horribly jerky. You can get away with it in special effects sequences in live action, but the problem is the entire film is a special effect sequence and so your eye is drawn to it again and again.

It’s best evidenced in the final third of the film when there’s a lot of running. The running doesn’t look like normal human running, it looks like normal human running filmed, and then frames have been removed. I’ve seen 3 frame walk cycles in traditional animation that looked more like running that the running did here.

And this is why mo-cap fails in comparison with animation or live action. Whereas animation is the creation of an illusion of reality, motion capture is taking a real performance, and making it more artificial. It’s ruining performances. John Malkovich’s in particular in the case of this film.

Sunday’s Post, TODAY~!

Brack — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:39:50 +0000

I watched a couple of films yesterday, which I then wrote about and didn’t post. In the case of the latter film, it was probably for the best I’ve given it some more thought on the hikes from and to the exhaust place I had to do today.

First up was Tekkon Kinkreet, which I’ve finally seen after about a year of being all excited about it. Thankfully it didn’t let me down.

I’d read a fair chunk of the manga when it was published as “Black and White” in the pages of Pulp. It was always my favourite of the strips in there and for the past couple of years I’ve been all over Studio 4°C, so my hopes were high for Michael Arias’ adaptation. I’ve not seen the dub yet, and I understand the English script was written first, but the Japanese version flowed well. Boy band member Kazunari Ninomiya as Kuro was probably the weak link in the cast, sounding a little too like someone reading lines, but that can be seen in US animation too with actors who aren’t voice actors doing animation. Yuu Aoi (Hagu in the live action Honey & Clover) steals the show with her performance as Shiro, and Min Tanaka (is this the Butoh dancer?) is a good Nezumi.

I don’t know if it’s my memory playing tricks on me, but I seem to remember the manga having more of Nezumi and his view of Treasure Town in it. My copies of Pulp went binward when I moved last year so I can’t check at the moment. I should get the new one volume collection to compare it.

The most dazzling thing about the film is the background art and I see there’s 3 artbooks, two of which are in the same format as Cannabis Works, so I can see me grabbing them if the background painting/designs are in there.

Of the three 2006 anime films I was getting all excited about, I still think Mamoru Hosoda’s The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the best, but this and Paprika are both hot on it’s heels.

After watching Tekkon Kinkreet, I went and watched Superbad.

It’s not as good as I was hoping for from the trailer, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some reviews it’s got in the UK. The first segment, basically everything prior to the first McLovin gag, is wearisome, and I’m not sure if the misogynistic ignorance that is spouted by the characters here is supposed to be found amusing by the audience in itself, or if we are supposed to find the fact that they are so ignorant amusing. Either way it doesn’t work.

What it does do better is slapstick and situational comedy. The stuff with the cops, Joe Lo Truglio’s character and Micheal Cera’s scene with the coked up guys work well. But, there’s been comedies who’ve done the whole getting from A-B with hijinks inbetween better, and have made that the focus of the film. Danny Leiner’s films for example. Yes, I am saying “Harold and Kumar” AND “Dude, Where’s My Car” are better (“Dude, Where’s My Car” is a film I found myself surprised at liking. Admittedly I was very ill at the time, so that might have played a part).

What would have made it better?

Well, the female characters could have been more fleshed out, it’s not until the last 15 minutes any of them really get a personality and that seems to be only in order to deliver what amounts to the films moral. A moral that had been delivered about halfway through the film anyway. And the most interesting aspect of the film, the separation anxiety of the two leads, gets lost in the rest of the film. And it’s far too long for a comedy, a good deal of the film before the attempts to buy alcohol could be excised from the film.

It’s not as good as a lot of people are making out (imdb top 250! really?), but it’s also not as bad as few people have painted it.

Evil Powers Of The Internet, Give Me Strength

Brack — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:40:19 +0000

* Watched the leaked King Of Kong cut. It’s an excellent documentary, even in this unfinished form. While it’s obviously been cut to paint Billy Mitchell as something of the villain of the piece, he does come across as a strange, yet charismatic person just in what he says to camera. Comparing Donkey Kong to the “abortion issue” at one point illustrates his strangeness regardless of of the film is edited together. And it’s edited very well. The storytelling the film works very well due to how it’s edited. I’m hoping it gets a UK release, otherwise I’ll pick up the inevitable R1 DVD. Could well be my favourite film of the year.

* While Fox drag their heels on a Get A Life season 1 boxset, I’ve been watching it via VHS rips that were on MySpleen recently. This is another show I discovered from browsing Jump The Shark (and the samples on Handsome Boy Modelling School’s debut), but unlike Mr. Show it was a lot harder to track episodes down. Chris Elliot’s sitcom is a curious experiment that is really hurt by the laughter track. Not the greatest sitcom in the world, but certainly ahead of it’s time, with some expectational episodes, like “The Prettiest Day Of My Life” the episode that gave Handsome Boy Modelling School their name.

* Flashlight Fight by The Go! Team featuring Chuck D is all over my ears. Hear it at prefixmag and I’m sure you’re smart enough to weedle the mp3 out of that page.

* Got caught up with Gurren Lagann this morning. Episode 24 seemed influenced a lot by the shoot-em-ups I grew up with. I spotted what I thought were Parodius, Gradius and R-Type references, and I’m sure there must have been more. Episode 25 was all sorts of emotionally charged awesome. Two more eps to go!

Forthcoming Presentations

Brack — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:22:17 +0000

Well my whole “feeling better” thing was a little premature. Off the pills though as of tomorrow morning so no longer find myself dozing off randomly. In the meantime here are some film trailers.

Hey new Coen Brothers film you are looking enticing. I didn’t see Ladykillers and I thought Intolerable Cruelty had good performances and gags wasted on plot that was all front-loaded with no real climax. Or middle. But this looks peachy. It’s just depressing we’ve got to wait until Feb 08 to see it here.

This snuck up on me and took me by surprise. The last I looked Fantastic Mr Fox was the next Wes Anderson film (I guess after 3 years of looking at film release dates every day as my job, I’ve found myself taking a break), so catching the poster they released the other week for The Darjeeling Limited was a pleasant surprise. I’ve loved every Anderson film so far, so I’m really looking forward to this.

Hey, I hadn’t realised this was written by Stella/The State chap Michael Ian Black. And when you add the fact David Schwimmer is directing, it’s a strangely enticing mess of talent.

Yes.

Brack — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:56:31 +0000

Just linked to on 4chan’s /co/

No related posts.

Paprika

Brack — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:39:42 +0000

So that new Satoshi Kon film then. It’s an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Yasutaka Tsutsui. Prototypes of the DC-MINI, a machine designed to allow psychotherapists to analyse dreams from within the dream itself, are stolen and the scientists responsible for the device try and track down the culprits. Meanwhile a detective, receiving therapy from the “dream detective” Paprika becomes involved.

I really liked the detective’s story. In fact I liked it better than the rest of film. Which is not to say the rest of the film is poor, it’s very good. It’s just the cop’s narrative holds together better and the message of that part of the film is a lot clearer.

Interestingly, that part of the film contains some of the least ambitious animation. It was more about the true nature of dreams. Of waking life impinging itself on your sleeping subconcious, a remix of thoughts and experience. And it’s also clearly saying something about the the relationship between our dreams and visual entertainment like film. The detective dreams in the framework of film, and if feels very staid and confined compared to the wilds of the other dreams we glimpse in the film. But are those dreams wilder just because we don’t really get the same background as we get for the cop? If we knew the background, would they seem just as rooted in reality? Or is it because those dreams are dreams run wild, invading other dreams and ultimately the physical world? When the mystery of the detective’s dreams are revealed, at first it seems a little cliche, but I think it’s more honest and believable than the larger narrative at play.

The sci-fi thriller part of the story is less rewarding, and while the mystery it offers is on a larger scale, it’s revelation isn’t as satisfying as the mystery of the cop’s dream. What it lacks in narrative coherance it makes up for impressive visuals. The climax may lack a great deal of sense and explanation, but it does have some truly memorable scenes of animated madness. It’s somewhat similar to the climax of Paranoia Agent, except there you had a clear idea of the WHY, you just lacked the HOW. Here the HOW is obvious, it’s the sci-fi McGuffin, but WHY it’s happening is somewhat at the periphery. You get hints here and there, but it’s not really explained all that well. Which makes me think that possibly it’s the character progression of the two leads that is the real story rather than the whole theft narrative.

The lead character of Dr Atsuko Chiba and her alter ego Paprika brings both the storylines together, and she too undergoes a character progression similar to the detectives, however it feels a little uneven. It’s all back loaded, and when she comes to certain realisations, we get flashbacks to earlier scenes, but to parts of the scenes we didn’t actually see then. It strains belief a little and feels rushed, but I think it still just about holds up. Would it have worked better if it had been foreshadowed better? I don’t know, outside of Paprika we don’t really see any of Chiba’s own dreams, if we had more would it have distracted from the detectives story? Would it have made the thriller part more garbled?

One quesion that sprang to mind while watching is does if Kon direct to Susumu Hirasawa’s soundtrack or does Hirasawa soundtrack to Kon’s visuals? I kind of hope it’s the first, no offense to Hirasawa who turns in another great soundtrack, but I really admire animators who match their visuals to music.

Megumi Hayashibara turns it what is my favourite performance I’ve seen of hers in the lead role. Nice to see her in sizable role in something that isn’t Pokemon or Detective Conan too. I’m curious to how the dub will sound, as it’s a role that requires an actress who can do two distinctly different voices and performances. Akio Ohtsuka as the detective, Konakawa, is also awesome. I’d kind of overlooked him as a performer, until I realised he was Blackbeard in One Piece a few months back, and then I realised he was everywhere, and wherever he was, he was great.

One last thing, I really liked the conceit of having the director and the author as the barmen in the dream website, and then have them play an active role in the climax.

All in all a great film, though I don’t think it’s necessarily Kon’s best work in terms of story. And it wasn’t the best anime film of 2006 either, for my money that’s still The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which was also based on a story by Tsutsui.

The DVD release is due in the autumn through Sony.

Free mp3 tracks from the soundtrack @ Susumu Hirasawa’s website
Paprika Homepage

The Ten – teaser trailer

Brack — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:02:46 +0000

Hollywood's Black, Black Heart – 2007 Edition

Brack — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 06:44:00 +0000

White Noise 2: The Light
Rocky Balboa
Goal! 2: Living the Dream…
Hannibal Rising
Hills Have Eyes II, The
Mr. Bean's Holiday
Spider-Man 3
28 Weeks Later…
Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End
Ocean's Thirteen
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Shrek the Third
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Live Free or Die Hard
Evan Almighty
Bourne Ultimatum, The
Resident Evil: Extinction

NOW WITH ADDED REMAKES!

Gridiron Gang
Charlotte's Web
School for Scoundrels
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Hitcher
Transformers
Halloween

"Just a Mischievous, Rambunctious Kid."

Brack — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 20:00:00 +0000

Oh yeah, I finally saw The Grudge (the Japanese theatrical). After having the DVD sitting on my shelf for the better part of 2 years, I watched round by brother's place on Halloween.

Over-rated.

The concept was fine, but the execution just wasn't scary.

And the concept didn't really stretch out to the running time of the film. What was, I guess, meant to be an escalating sense of doom, became a chore as the house became something of a revolving door of death and flour covered kids.

I understand that there's plenty to ponder if you want to cogitate over the whys and wherefores of the thing if that's your bag, but the thing just don't do the scary thing on a visceral or a psychological level.