Posts Tagged ‘new release’

My husband and I just finished the second episode of the anime version of High School of the Dead, a series about the zombie apocalypse starting in downtown Tokyo.

It was originally a manga that my husband adores and is still reading as new chapters come out.

So far the adaptation from manga to anime is spot on.

I watched my first anime before I read my first manga, Weiss Kreuz, an older series about assassins posing as flower shop workers during the day. It is not a great anime, but it has a special place in my heart, and like many of its fellows it also has an accompanying manga.

The manga for Weiss Kreuz is not typical, but tells the story of how the main characters ended up working together, a prequel to better understand the events in the anime.

Manga and Anime relations for a single series can develop in a number of different ways. Most people assume that the norm is to have a manga that existed first that they then translated into an anime to see the stationary pictures come alive with movement and voice actors.

Sometimes it is that clean cut, but not always.
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It isn’t often that a movie is so bad that I allow it to join the ranks of my most hated movies of all time, like The Spirit, Shadow of the Vampire and To Die For. But The Last Airbender was so painful to watch, I almost left the theatre.

I do not leave movies without giving them the full benefit of the doubt, but maybe sometimes I should. If I had left when I realized that no, the movie was not going to get better, I could have avoided the inevitable soul-raping that took place.
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A good sci fi film is about atmosphere. It’s not just aliens or fantastical creatures, or even a futuristic setting. It’s a whole feeling that grips you while you’re watching it. At least, that’s true for good sci fi films.

This past decade I feel like we have been falling short. There are examples of a few truly great sci fi movies, but for the most part I have been disappointed.

The inspiration for this blog was the recent sci fi flick, “Splice.” After over a week since I saw the movie I am still unsure how to accurately describe it. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It was messed up. It was disturbing. It was just plain weird. And not in the ‘well, that’s what I want of my sci fi movies’ kind of way. More like a big WTF.
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“Heroes” is at long last dead, having finished its ultimately short reign this past season. NBC is stepping forward to pick up that superhero slack by introducing a new caped crusader as part of its upcoming Fall line-up, “The Cape”.

“From the visionary team of Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun comes an imaginative adventure about a dad who would do anything to protect his family.

Officer Vince Faraday was a good cop trying to clean up a corrupt city. Framed for murder and left for dead, he suddenly found himself separated from his wife and son and forced into hiding. Now, inspired by his son’s favorite comic book hero, he’s taking the law into his own hands, and playing a deadly game of chess with the powerful kingpin who framed him. With the hope of one day reuniting with his family, The Cape is sending a loud message to all criminals… run.” -NBC.com

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There are classic lines from movies that have become a part of cinema history. These lines are often used in parodies and quoted in reverence.

I don’t have any problem with parodies or when a classic line is spoken specifically to honor the movie it came from.

But there are also generic lines, lines we have heard again and again that have become more than just clichés, they are an epidemic.

You know some of the classic lines I’m talking about.

The American Film Institution’s list of the top 100 movie quotes in American cinema puts this at #1:
 

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

But my favorite would have to be #79:

Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious!”
Rumack: “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.”

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I realize I have been starting a trend lately with not doing the blog I promised to do the week I said I would, but I will get to “Why Today’s Cartoons Suck” next week. Today I need to rant.

I recently posted the blog “Comic Book Movie Adaptations FTW” in preparation for Kick-Ass, The Losers, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. I admitted not having read Kick-Ass or The Losers at the time, but before seeing Kick-Ass in theatres I finally got the chance to read its comic.

And I hated it.

Don’t misunderstand, I adored the movie. It was everything I wanted it to be. But the comic almost had me backing out of seeing the film at all.

I would like to avoid spoilers for those of you who have not read the comic or seen the film yet, so I will try to generalize as I explain why the comic upset me so much.
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I used to associate 3D movies more with IMAX theatres and huge blockbusters, but in the last couple of years 3D has really begun to take over. It’s everywhere now. TVs are even being made with 3D capability to keep up.

We live in a 3D world and apparently we want our entertainment to follow suit.

Well, it must be true because fans keep going and spending that ridiculous amount extra for plastic glasses. Personally, I don’t have a problem with movies coming out in 3D when it honestly enhances the experience. My problem is with the 3D overload.

Some movies are meant to stay 2D.
 
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I have discussed comic book movies a few times on here, including a few from last summer, some good, some bad, and some of the more terrible examples in the history of adaptations, like Batman & Robin.

When we think of comic book movies we usually think of classic examples like that— Batman, Iron Man, X-men—but there are also comic book movie adaptations from lesser known comics.

Those are the examples I would like to discuss today, because there are three such movies coming out in the near future that look pretty damn good: Kick-Ass, The Losers, and Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
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If there was one literary/fictional device that I hate most it would be the love triangle, or even worse, a love shape. I hate them in reality too, but it’s even worse to throw them in where we’d like to have a happy ending, thank you, since happy endings happen even less often in real life.

Anime is one of the most rampant mediums that use such tactics. Love triangles and shapes are literally everywhere you turn, in almost every setting, especially shoujo.

SHOUJO: This title is used to describe anime that is intended for an audience of young females, and is usually centered on emotion-based storylines.

While this blog is called “The Shoujo Love Triangle” that is more in reference to the usage of triangles, not to say that I will only be looking at shoujo anime examples.

Let’s start with a couple classics, shall we?
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In my early years of gaming I began like many others, first watching my siblings and then trying my own hand at classics like Super Mario Brothers and Burger Time.

I eventually matured to the Final Fantasy series, Xenogears, Diablo, and Metal Gear Solid, and was just as willing to attempt the next RPG as I was a mindless excuse to kill things as can be found in most Blizzard Games.

Those styles of gaming all still exist, but many of them have something a little extra these days—a choice between good and evil.

What I mean by a ‘good vs evil’ game is this: A game where the storyline is directly affected by the player’s choices, which determines whether the protagonist will become a selfless hero or a self-serving bastard.
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