What have Sam Raimi and James Franco been up to since emo Peter Parker crushed your hopes and dreams of a good third Spidey movie? Raimi directed Drag Me To Hell, and almost directed a World of Warcraft film. And Franco…has been just about everywhere—sleeping in class, trapped between a rock and a hard place, reading poetry in poorly lit rooms, and starting NASCAR races (incorrectly), just to name a few. Seems fitting that he would end up in Oz at some point. Raimi’s and Franco’s reunion largely succeeds, delivering some complex ideas without losing any of its heart, and despite its corny flaws, is a worthwhile journey to take.
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Samurai Champloo has got
to be the coolest anime I've ever watched. The best? No. The prettiest?
Maybe not. But the coolest? I'd say so. What do I mean by coolest, you
ask? I simply mean that it is one of the hippest things I've ever seen -
stylistically, narratively, and aesthetically. The show has a general
swagger about it that really can't be matched. The animation is crisp
and stylized like an animated Tarantino film, the music bridges the gap
between past and present perfectly, and all the characters are cool as
Hell. Produced by Shinichiro Watanabe, the guy behind the acclaimed Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Shamploo build on Bebop
's stylistic and narrative hipness to take the viewer into an alternate
version of Japanese history, where the Edo period is defined by hip-hop
as much as swordplay. It's this modern urban vibe married to the
traditional Japanese setting that really puts the show on top. Whereas a
stylistic choice that bold could just have easily been a disaster, SC
pulls it off fantastically.
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It feels slightly odd to be gearing up to write another glowing, acclaim-filled laudation for an animated Batman film so soon after the release of the last stellar entry, but here we are. In my review of The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, I commented that I felt it was the best animated Batman since 1993’s Mask of the Phantasm, making it my personal favorite animated Batman of all time. Though others may not share this view, there’s no denying that the film was if nothing else a well-crafted and daring-yet-respectful adaptation of the comic book source material from which it draws. So that’s 19 years between Phantasm and Part 1, with releases of varying merit scattered in between, and now Part 2 comes to us... a mere four months later? Holy quality control, Batman! Now granted, both halves of Returns were likely already completed when Part 1 was released, and odds are the two segments will be regarded as a single film by most accounts. That said, it’s not as if this is a new trend nowadays; Peter Jackson does it, so why not DC? Anyways, the overall effect is the same. The bar has been raised, and from now on I intend to judge animated Batman films on the same grounds as I do Hollywood blockbusters.
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It's been a while since I've reviewed an anime. The last full series that I really got into was Basilisk
(you can check out my review at the bottom of the Reviews section).
Since I tore through that ninja epic last summer, I haven't been able to
really sink my teeth into any series. I've started a few shows here and
there, but none of them really piqued my interest. I was getting to the
point where I was tempted to just give up and go back to rewatching old
classics like Neon Genesis Evangelion or Fullmetal Alchemist.
However, after browsing the Funimation website, I finally stumbled upon
a series that had just enough oomph to keep my entertained for all
thirteen episodes. No more, no less - just enough. The Sacred Blacksmith is just that - good enough. It's not great, but it's decent enough to keep you on board for the whole ride.
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The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 is without a doubt an animated film that stands on its own two feet, pulling the viewer into its unique, dystopian take on Gotham City with relative ease simply by offering setting and narrative that are highly compelling. Bruce Wayne has been in retirement for about ten years, and is well into his fifties; a similar scenario to a recent Christopher Nolan effort, as you may recall. The source material significantly predates the Nolan era, however, as the film is a near-direct adaptation of Frank Miller’s four-issue comic book series from 1986. Gotham has gone into a serious tail-spin, with crime rates through the roof and the city near-overrun by a brutal and cult-like gang known as the Mutants. The Mutants are ubiquitous enough that their presence has been in a way accepted by the city’s citizens; it’s common knowledge not to be out alone late at night or to travel through certain areas unarmed, for fear of being mugged, attacked, or worse.
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How do you review the greatest television show of all time? Is there
more praise to heap on it? More accolades that haven't already been
bestowed? Probably not, but I'll still join the chorus of voices
extolling The Wire as TV's absolute cream-of-the-crop. If it's
not clear from these opening sentences, I'm gonna give the show a good
review. Since you could write a book about the intricacies and
implications of the series, I'll speak in more general terms, trying to
point out the best and brightest of one of HBO's finest programs. If you
stop reading after this opening paragraph, at least take this away -
watch The Wire. It may be the most well-crafted visual narrative of all time. Spanning 60 episodes from 2002 to 2008, The Wire takes you into the heart of the city of Baltimore. The show is the brainchild of Ed Burns, a former homicide detective, and David Simon, a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. The series reads as their love letter to the city; confessing its beauty along with its pain.
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I’ve been thinking about reviewing The Dark Knight Rises for a while now. Every time I try to sit down and hash out what I want to write, I get a few words down, delete them, and instead go out and see the movie again. Eight theater viewings later, however, I finally feel ready to tackle it. Oh, and spoiler alert: it’s better than The Dark Knight. A controversial conclusion to reach, yes, but a conclusion I wholeheartedly believe in. There’s plenty to love about Rises, and the single word that keeps entering my brain when considering how to describe the film is consistency. The verisimilitude of the acting, the allure of the narrative, the intensity of the action, the disposition of the characters; all exceedingly consistent. And when I use that word, consistent, I mean to say that the elements I’ve just listed never dip below a certain quality threshold throughout...
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When watching Yoji Yamada's samurai film, The Hidden Blade, I could not help myself from comparing it to American Westerns.
Yamada's film, set in 1860's Japan, tells the tale of Munezo Katagiri,
an honorable samurai attempting to navigate through the new customs and
technologies of a rapidly changing Japan. The samurai, like America's
cowboy, is a culturally iconic figure. In the 1860s, as European and
American ideas flooded Japan, the samurai class found itself a stubborn
stone being eroded by the torrential river of Modernization. This aspect
of the film reminded me of the shrinking of the American frontier - as
the railroad and the telegraph spread west, the domain of the mythical
cowboy diminished, dooming that great American figure to a future seen
only in pop-culture.
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This past year, I spent my winter break at home watching both Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
in their entirety (that's over 100 episodes of anime). I was able to
crush through the series so quickly based on the simple fact that I fell
in love with it. To this day, FMA:B remains my favorite anime series. I
felt that the character development in both series was brilliant, the
animation was beautiful, and the story was sprawling in a good way and
emotional without being melancholic. Even the music for the opening
credits was great. Although Brotherhood
ended with definite closure, the producers of the series recently
released a new film to serve as a "mid-quel," taking place a some point
within the narrative arc of the series. I finally watched The Sacred Star of Milos last night, and while it is not as good as Brotherhood was, it is still an entertaining and worthwhile addition to the franchise.
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“To the one I love, prepare to die.”This grim warning adorns the banner of the Basilisk page on the Funimation website. These lamenting words speak truly to the tone of the tragedy that is Basilisk.
What I first took to be an exposé on ridiculous ninja combat evolved
before my eyes into a truly emotional tale of romance, family and honor.
Whereas I was first drawn in by the fantasy-esque combat, I was hooked
by the memorable characters and the persistent knowledge that they could
have no happy ending. In my review of the first half of the series, I
made the obvious connection to Romeo and Juliet.
The series’ second half takes this familiar plotline all the way and
then some: by the end, just about every character is dead. The ultimate
melancholic tone and tragic love between Gennosuke and Oboro contribute
to the darkness which makes Basilisk
stand out. Even though you know from the very beginning that the lovers
will eventually die, you still feel a pang of sadness when you finally
witness their demise.
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Before
I begin, let me state: I think ninjas are awesome. Whereas samurai live
and die by a strict code of honor, calling out opponents on the
battlefield to publically display their battle prowess, ninjas use
deception and shadow to kill. That’s right; deception and shadow. Can
you think of any weapon more badass than deception and shadow? Didn’t think so.
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