Anime Expo in a couple of days! This will be the first time I'm attending all four days (though I don't plan to do much the final day), and the first time I'll be staying in a hotel, which means I can do late night stuff and then walk back to my hotel in the dead of night in downtown Los Angeles. That sounds like a great idea! Wait a minute ...
X2 (2003): Much better than the first X-Men movie, and a step above the recent X-Men flick, as well. They're still introducing mutants, but the movie doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting with that, so there's more room to concentrate on weaving an engaging plot. I especially like that Magneto and the "bad" mutants are a bit more gray in this one; they're still quite clearly dicks, but they're not so supervillainy in a hokey way, either. Kind of surprised Beast hasn't made his way into the movies all that much yet, though.
Zatoichi (2003): First movie I've seen from renowned Japanese actor/director Beat Takeshi. The story's not much different from most samurai flicks, but it's stylish enough, and it has this weird sense of humor that should probably be dumb but somehow works. And there's dancing. If anything, it got me more interested in seeing movies from Takeshi ...
All About Eve (1950): Love it even more on second watch. What really stands out about this movie is how smart and powerful the writing is. Nothing is dumbed down at all, and a lot of it is crazy risque for the time. I think the characters spend like half the movie thumbing their noses at the Hays Code, haha. Sunset Boulevard is a better movie to me, but I sure as shit could never argue this winning the Best Picture award that year. And just as an interesting note: Usually when I rewatch movies, I focus on some random detail because I already know how the plot goes, and this time I could not help but notice that certain characters borrow lines from each other during key moments. It's always when they're trying to establish a certain tone, too, like they're borrow bits and pieces from people they want to emulate so that they can establish a certain identity at a certain time.
The Thing (1982): Watched with Trip and everyone else -- probably the fifth or sixth time I've seen it, and I doubt I'll get tired of it. This movie is really one of the best examples of using special effects in service of storytelling and mood rather than to show off and have the effects upstage the movie. The transformations are gruesome climaxes to all the tension building from the paranoia running rampant in the compound. Also an interesting note: I read in a Cracked article that the Norwegian dudes at the beginning of the movie basically give away the plot with their crazy ramblings. So if you know Norwegian, then the whole movie has basically been spoiled for you in the first few minutes.
Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight (1985): The absolute worst anime I have ever seen -- I feel quite confident in making that proclamation. It's 136 minutes of absolutely nothing. Whole sequences are spent on spacemen doing safety procedures. I'm not even remotely joking; there's like five minutes straight on pushing buttons and pulling levers and shit like that. I watched this with a group of people on Skype, and I still fell asleep for a few minutes at one point. It's unbelievably boring, like Monster A-Go Go or Rocketship X-M levels of dull. The worst part is that it's actually well animated, so it actually suckers you briefly into believing that there is some level of craft behind the picture. There is not. It's stupid, boring, the story makes no sense and reaches no real conclusion, and it's a blight on the universe.
City of God (2002): I am somewhat ashamed that it took me this long to see this brilliant movie. I could describe it as a Brazilian Goodfellas, but it has a different sort of style and energy to it that fits the subject matter -- the titular City of God is much more kinetic and spontaneous than the cooler than cool world Henry Hill inhabits in Goodfellas. This is really one of the few movies that takes that crazy, Run Lola Run-esque "I'M GOING TO BOMBARD YOU WITH AN INSANE SENSORY EXPERIENCE" visual style and makes it work. City of God is a stunning visual experience. The writing is great, too; every detail has a purpose, and everything ties together in the end in a way that actually feels organic and not contrived. There's one moment late in the movie that plays on a minor detail from earlier in the story, and it's so beautifully tragic. I can't say enough great things about this movie -- see it if you have not yet.
On the queue for this week: The Illusionist (2010)
Total Movies: 99 (Blazing Saddles, The Descent, Gundam 00 the Movie: Awakening of the Trailblazer, Village of the Damned, Children of the Damned, Trigun: Badlands Rumble, The Night of the Hunter, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha the Movie 1st, Dawn of the Dead, Black Swan, Clue, Scarface, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, True Grit, Perfect Blue, The Quick and the Dead, High Sierra, Shutter Island, A Serious Man, Kite, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Broken Blade 3, Kite Liberator, Machete, The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Heathers, The Prince of Tennis: The Two Samurai, The First Game, Notes on a Scandal, The American, King of Thorn), The Expendables, Sword of the Stranger, The Hangover, Welcome to the Space Show, Broken Blade 4, The Social Network, End of Evangelion, Neo Tokyo, Red, Dreamcatcher, Jason X, Wag the Dog, The Naked Gun, Dirty Work, 8mm, The Wicker Man (2006), Blood: The Last Vampire, Winter's Bone, The Road, Heartcatch Precure! Hana no To de Fashion Show ... Desu ka?!, Broadcast News, Bulletproof, Dead Leaves, Dirty Dancing, Hot Tub Time Machine, Eureka Seven: Pocketful of Rainbows, Cloverfield, Best in Show, Play Misty for Me, Paprika, The Cat Returns, Welcome to the Dollhouse, 12 Monkeys, The Killer, Metropolis, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, The Third Man, The King's Speech, Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus, The Abyss, The Fighter, Mega Piranha, Dumb and Dumber, The Rebirth of Buddha, 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, The Town, Willow, Akira, Morning Glory, The Verdict, I Love You Phillip Morris, Phantasm II, American Splendor, Broken Blade 5, Tangled, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, The Rock, Wanted, Green Zone, Despicable Me, Waiting for Guffman, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, X-Men: First Class, X-Men, Hereafter, X2, Zatoichi, All About Eve, The Thing, Odin: Photon Space Sailer Starlight, City of God)
