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Cold...
so very cold...
Well
We're into January, and at last our infamous Newfoundland winter
has begun... After being spolied rotton through December (it was
as high as 18 degrees Celsius at one point on Christmas freakin
day!) God is getting his vengeance. I honestly don't know why the
old timers on this godforsaken rock are so die hard religious when
every freakin year from January to May god hits his "fuck you
guys!" switch and dumps on us for three goddamn months straight!
And it's not that light sprinkle you see in places like London and
Toronto and New York and shit, oh no! We have to have cars buried
in our driveways and 90 mile an hour atlantic winds blowing the
shit around! Snowdrifts the size of fucking Dodge Rams! Witeouts
(thats where the wind is blowing the snow accross the roads so badly
that you can see nothing but white... the world doesn't exist beyond
the glass of your windshield), freezing rain following up a heavy
snowfal so you get to beat the ever-loving shit out of yourself
trying to clear the six foot deep drift out of your driveway...
and then there's my location... alongside a hill, where the wind
whips with a primal ferocity between the houses, filling my goddamn
stairwell, meaning i have to dig out of my home... and the neighbor's
lawn, which is elevated, causing the damned snow to blow down into
my side of the damn driveway, completely eliminating any trace of
a vehicle that may or may not be parked there... And don't get me
started on the brain dead fucking morons who tear around in this
stuff like their Marcus Gronholm or Colin McRae gunning for the
World Rally Championship, which can be hella fun sure, but not in
a goddamned populated area, busy main roadway, or fucking heavily
populated parking lot... assholes... 25 centimeteres already this
week, and another 30 on the way... did i mention the goddamn storms
always come in twos as well?
I
fucking hate winter...
Welcome
to AVALON...
Better
known for being an influential anime director than anything else,
Mamoru Oshii has always been one of my favourites... responsible
for such greats as Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 1 & 2, and the
creator of perhaps my single favorite animated film at the moment,
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. Well Oshii has also done several motion
pictures within Japan which until recently have never been seen
by the public at large outside of that country, except for AVALON,
my first experience with Oshii in a live action medium, and definitely
not my last.
AVALON
brings us into a near future, an eastern European city, where teens
and young adults play an illegal virtual reality game of the same
name. These youths are cut off from society, spending their time
in a virtual world filled with violence and carnage. The game is
additicve, and highly dangerous, as several have been lost to the
virtual reality of Avalon, their real world bodies merely vegetables
(called the Unreturned). Into the game world steps Ashe,
a near legendary lone wolf warrior armed with a sniper rifle. Ashe
lives for the game, her real life an exercise in tedium. When a
mysterious Bishop appears on the scene and shows up her most recent
effort, she becomes determined to track down this player and find
out who he is. This Bishop may hold the key to the mysterious "Special
Class"-level. A former teammate appears, pieces of Ashe's mysterious
past fall into place, and the secrets of Avalon slowly unravel...
will Ashe risk joining the ranks of The Unreturned in order to finish
the game?
AVALON
is not a trip for everyone, as is typical of Mamoru Oshii, it's
a slow moving piece, a medetative type of film which really makes
one think. Filmed entirely in sepia tones with some beautiful photography
and unique visual effects it is definitely something to look at,
and for once, one of these "which reality is real?" sci-fi
films was actually written by someone who knows the source material.
As an avid gamer i found it very cool to hear things like Classes,
experience points, and all the other trappings of the online-RPG
scene dropped in relation to the game, Avalon. Also preceeding reality
a little, players earn hard cash by exceling in the game (mirrored
chillingly by these folks getting rich in the real world by auctioning
off Everquest characters and Star Wars Galaxies items and cash on
E-bay). The film throws american sci-fi convention on it's head
in a big way, and while my other fave sci-fi film of the past while,
EQUILIBRIUM, revels in it's sci-fi heritage, AVALON really casts
it off, creating something truely unique, and i dare say vastly
superior to the current trends in North American sci-fi. The Matrix
is Dr. Seuss next to this film, so those of you looking for a quick
little trip with some eye candy need not apply.
The
DVD treatment, as far as i'm concerned, was perfect. Mirimax really
did a great job on the authoring here, with a wonderfully active
5.1 track in both original Polish (though a Japanese film, the story
is set in Eastern Europe, and thus uses the native language, those
wacky Japanese) and a GREAT English dub! The dub job perfectly captures
the atmosphere of the locale, complete with accents and such...
i really couldn't find anything to complain about here... The subtitle
track is pretty much a transcript of the dub, which has riled many
people apparently, but i really see no flaws, and since i have no
idea what the folks are saying in polish anyway it's close enough
i would assume. Thye picture quality is clear as a bell, there is
an inherent softness to the image, but i believe that's actually
part of the package rather than a flaw in the authoring itself...
there are some extras here as well, an interview with the director
and a special effects documentary... both are quite lengthy, and
all in Japanese with subtitles.... Missing is a trailer of any sort,
which is a bit of a dissapointment, but i'll live...
Underworld
- i dug this movie!
Back
in the fall i'd seen a few trailers for this "Vampires vs.
Werewolves" flick, and while the premise seemed slightly interesting,
the whole "Blade meets the Matrix" feel of the trailers
really turned me off. After some positive word of mouth i dedicated
myself to getting a hold of this one and checking it out as soon
as it hit DVD, and man i don't regret it for a second! Next to EQUILIBRIUM
this was about the most pleasent surprise of the last 12 months
or so. While a little heavy on the gothic posturing, Underworld
brings to the table some damn awesome fight scenes, some great camerawork
and cinematography, and a whole "soaked in silver" look
to the colors which really makes this thing look damned nice. I
have to say it was considerably better written than i was expecting,
with some elements borrowed from classic mythology for both species,
and more than a little borrowed from the more modern Anne Rice -
White Wolf school (incidentally, White Wolf actually sued over this
film, claiming they spotted over sixty direct infringements in their
own Werewolf and Vampire products - It was probably justified).
Everything was handled with a certain flair for the material, and
treats the whole thng with reverance and respect rather than the
tounge-in-cheek humor so prevalent in today's action/horror flicks...
this will probably turn off the more mainstream folks, but fans
of the whole Vampire goth thing, and goth freaks in general will
probably really enjoy this one. (i'm no goth really... i just enjoy
this kind of stuff from time to time...)
Cabin
Fever - disturbing stuff!
Gore
hounds will love this one. I really have to talk a little about
this disc... the thing is loaded with some damn hilarious stuff,
and knowing nothing going in i really expected an all out laugh
fest in the tradition of Evil Dead II, what i got instead was a
disturbing trip. Five college students decide to get away and rent
a cabin in the middle of some backwater hick-town for a week. A
stranger approaches the cabin, obviously stricken with some sort
of disease which eats the flesh, and one by one the young'uns become
infected or insanely paranoid of one another. The flesh eating stuff
is truely gruesome, some of the most grotesque stuff i've seen in
my years... blood oozing from scabbed flesh, or spraying from mouths
with a cough... one scene in particular has a traumatized young
girl shaving her legs in a tub, fine yeah? Except for the fact that
her legs are quickly rotting away, and filled with sacbs... BLECH!
About the only comedy in the film really comes from scenes with
the bizarre locals, one part "Fargo", the other part "Deliverance".
The rest is underlined with tension (which doesn't really carry
all that well) and the same sort of intense paranoia that permeated
John Carpenter's classic remake, THE THING, in fact, there were
a few ideas which seemed to be lifted verbatim from Carpenter's
masterpiece, in particular the exile of the first memner of the
group to be infected to the wood shed on the cabin grounds. I can't
really say i liked or disliked the film, i can recommended it to
gore fans, or maybe those who grew up watching the more psychological
splatter films of the 70's and 80's.
I
thought you said he was a getaway driver. What the fuck can he get away
from?
"London!
You know: Fish, Chips, cup-o-tea, bad food worse weather, Mary -
fuckin- Poppins London!" Playing The Getaway always gets me
into some kind of a Guy Ritchie mood. This one came out roughly
a year ago to mixed-slighty positive reviews. I think the biggest
problem really was overhype... the finished product was about as
much as anyone could expect, and i'm rather fond of the whole thing.
The british deveolpment team actually mapped out 40-odd square kilometers
of London, right down to store fronts and landmarks, and the result
is a pure blast to drive through. Car controls are far more Gran
Turismo than Vice City, and the on foot controls, while a little
stiff, are well executed... there's some great gunfighting action
going on here... if you're looking for something new to try some
night with a bit of a storyline and some interesting gameplay, i'd
say you can't go wrong with the Getaway...
found
a cute little quiz online, answer a few questions and they tell
you which Finding Nemo character you are. Turns out i'm Dory, which
is cool enough i guess, she had me laughing my ass off in the movie...
kind of sucks that i'm a blue female fish though... the lesbian
part is kinda cool i guess...
props
to Kev over at Notanywhereland
for digging this up.
Last updated January 19th, 2003
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