When it comes to the “science and technology” part of Science Fiction, there tend to be three axis of thought, that end up forming into a sort of spectrum-ish thing – like those charts used in some video games where your character’s stats are portrayed in context of a geometric shape, with portions sticking out in different directions based on how you’ve chosen to weight things. There’s a technical term for this, but I don’t know what its. Read more
If I was to summarize this film in one meme, it would be “That Escalated Quickly”, and I mean that very much in the original context where it’s used in Anchorman. Read more
This time I’m reviewing the film adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s science fiction novel, “Damnation Alley” Read more
This time I’m reviewing the fantasy anime series “Record of Lodoss War” from 1990.
“Little Lily Swing” – Tri-Tachyon
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Notes: Matt Walton suggested that I cover some of the material I’ve previously covered in my fanzine on the show – this is meant to be a part of that – I did an article on Western Fantasy in Anime that covered Lodoss and several other shows that I’ll get to in future episodes.
“$NAME_OF_FILM” on/in a “$LOCATION_OR_VEHICLE” is a pretty good reductive way to describe some films. Under Siege is Die Hard on a Battleship. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Starship Mine” was pitched as Die Hard on the Enterprise. The Magnificent Seven is The Seven Samurai in the old west. While it’s reductive, it’s not necessarily bad, nor is it necessarily a derogatory way to describe a film. Thus, don’t take it as a minus when I say that Fury is Das Boot (which I’ve previously reviewed) in a Sherman Tank. Read more
Sometimes, science and scientific concepts make for great story hooks. Time Dilation – the idea that as you approach the speed of light, time slows down for you while moving normally for everyone else – is one of those concepts. One of the few high points of Flight of the Navigator was how it used time dilation to create pathos with the main character’s family having out-aged him. Makoto Shinkai’s Voices of a Distant Star did it with a couple being separated by not only distance, but time (a theme that would carry over to much of Shinkai’s other work). Interstellar does this with a parent and child. Read more
Gravity is, quite possibly, the tensest film I’ve ever seen, and is one of the most profound combinations of imagery and music (chronologically) since the Star Wars films and Koyaanisqatsi, and only eclipsed by Mad Max: Fury Road. Read more
When it comes to comic book films, and adaptations of comic books to the screen, there are questions about how you adapt certain comic book concepts to the screen, and as cinematic universes get more involved, there is no question that has lingered in the background more than “How do you clean up a cluttered universe?” How do you not only pull a retcon, but a big universe altering one?
Days of Future Past not only attempts to pull such a retcon, but succeeds, by creating a situation where the X-Men films can change course to a new path different from the first 3 films, while still giving credit to where the earlier films worked. Read more
Big Hero 6 is an incredibly impressive film from Disney. It’s a film that, I’d argue, tells a better superhero story than The Incredibles, with a very interestingly beautiful world, with gorgeous animation and interesting characters. Read more
Inglorious Basterds is a film that is not, in spite of its marketing, its posters, and its trailers, an action film. It’s a thriller. It’s a film that moves from incredibly tense dialog scene to tense dialog scene the way that John Woo goes from gunfight to gunfight. Read more
This time we conclude “The Yakuza Papers” with Part 5 – “Final Episode” Read more
X-Men: First Class is a film that is almost perfect, but has a few notes that just don’t quite work for me. It’s a combinations of factors Some characters are under-utilized, some characters feel mis-written, and there are some issues with tone, combined with some frustrating story choices. Read more
I’m a fan of the Fallout series. I love the world those games build, and consequently when I discover a work that is formulative to that universe, it tends to give that work a little extra appeal for me. It’s part of the reason why I like some of the later portions of The Martian Chronicles and why I enjoyed A Boy and his Dog, which is a review for another time. Damnation Alley is a little less known portion of the sub-genre, but is still a remarkably enjoyable film. Read more
This time we continue with “The Yakuza Papers” with Part 4 – “Police Tactics” Read more
Ridley Scott is a director who is fantastic at building worlds. In Blade Runner it was the future of Los Angeles. In Gladiator it was Imperial Rome. In Kingdom of Heaven, it’s 14th century Jerusalem and Palestine. Read more
Edge of Sanity is an interesting, but flawed film, taking the Jack the Ripper case, and combining it with Robert Lewis Stephenson’s classic work of Victorian horror – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Read more
This time we continue with “The Yakuza Papers” with Part 2 – “Proxy War” Read more
This time we continue with “The Yakuza Papers” with Part 2 – “Deadly Fight in Hiroshima” Read more
After my written reviews of the Yakuza Papers series, I’ve adapted them into a series of video reviews. Read more
Civil War, as a Comic Event, was something of a spectacular failure. I haven’t been good at doing video posts on my blog the past few weeks (something I’ll try to fix shortly), but this past week I did a video post on YouTube about Civil War, the comics, event, and how that could have been fixed.
The film version of Civil War has none of those problems. Instead, it’s one of the top films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. There will be some minor spoilers in this review (below the cut if you’re reading this on my blog). Read more
Megazone 23 – Part 3 is probably the most Cyberpunk part of the Megazone 23 series. The other installments had artificial intelligences and rebelling against the man. However, Part 3 has more hacking, human cybernetic augmentation, and dealing with human society’s relationship with the planet. It’s also the weakest part of the series. Read more
Megazone 23: Part II is a more violent film than its predecessor, but it does a good job of providing closure to the franchise – which is almost unfortunate because three years after this film came out we got part III.
When 8 Bells Toll is a film that really feels like it desperately wants to be a Bond film, but doesn’t even remotely feel one – instead feeling a more conventional mystery thriller.
Dark City is a gloriously wonderful film, which pays homage to Film Noir from the ’40s and ’50s, German Expressionist film of the 1920s and ’30s, and (to a degree), psychic battle manga like Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira and Domu, along with the series Locke the Superman (which in turn inspired the first two works). Read more
