food for thought

Posted by admin on Mar 24, 2008 in movies | 0 comments

Spent a pretty dormant break at home, doing pretty much nothing but fixing things like my mind. For what it’s worth, here’s a run down.

1. The Place Promised in Our Early Days (雲のむこう、約束の場所) by Makoto Shinkai – Shinkai has been all the rage in the anime world these days and I’m late to witness what the fuzz is all about. Approaching the film with no expectations or pre-assumptions, it was, to be honest, a bit hard to get in. Sure it’s just a simplistic becoming-of-age story in its core, but the sc-fi disguise and the inevitable comparison drawn to the Eva series is damn frustrating. Personally I think it’s the production crew to blame, that they should vary their style a little to avoid the confusion.

On the other hand, the artwork is absolutely stunning – it’s like a re-creation of Shinji Iwai’s imagery styles on computer, with traces of artificiality carefully concealed. The fact that Shinkai has a strong literature background and he spent 8 months alone to produce a short anime film on a Mac makes his works all the more interesting. He would become one of the names to be known for putting people’s faiths back into anime.

skate (ps3) – I’ve never had an urge to write about video games before, but skate is special in its own terms. The flickit control is revolutionary and the game is full of depth. Really wish I’d be able to learn to skate in real life.

Across The Universe (2007) - Now this was totally unexpected, but in a good way. I generally hate musicals and quasi-musical films. The idea of people breaking off to sing a corny song in the middle of a conversation is incredibly corny and awkward. I guess that’s why I have resisted watching Tim Burton‘s Sweeney Todd and the like.Clearly there’re some exceptions – with the most obvious one being Moulin Rouge. Rented as part of the research for last year’s Paris trip, the film blew me away when – of all the people – Nicole Kidman started singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. From then on everything became forgivable.

The same goes for Across The Universe. I wonder how some clueless people would react when they watch the psychedelic bits like “I’m a Walrus”. Would they reckon it’s something deep or metaphorical when it’s just a bunch of people getting high on drugs? Anyway, psychedelic section apart, it was a wonderfully produced and crafted film. There’re some original and inspiring uses of imagery, with my favourites being the strawberry grenades and subway lights galaxy. It brings on a whole new meaning to the decades old lyrics. Needless to say the performance, guitar and singing was top notch.

hello i’m a Paul McCartney lookalike

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes

juno

Posted by kenshin03 on Mar 4, 2008 in movies | 0 comments

probably the best lyrics I’ve seen in a while. I mean, Contra cheats? That’s just ingenius.





Anyone Else But You – The Moldy Peaches

Brave New World

Posted by kenshin03 on Mar 31, 2007 in movies | 0 comments

As an effort to avoid another disappointment, I’ve been approaching the film adaptions of Death Note with a pinch of salt. Afterall, the original ending was such a major let down I didn’t want to ruin whatever good impression I had left. Luckily, as it turned out, the quality of the films were almost too good to be true. They even brought back the initial thrill I had from the comics.

To say Death Note is revolutionary is an understatement. It has taken comics and storytelling to new heights in many aspects. What lies beneath a genius vs. genius story are layers of ideas and questions that challenge our beliefs and vow to unveil what’s wrong at the foundations of our society.

It isn’t too difficult to find yourself empathizing with Light, the protagonist. His actions were well founded, his logic was precise and extremely bold. I find it surprising that all the criticisms and arguments made against him all sound so unconvincing and powerless. Men have no rights to take the lives of others? What Light did was no different than that of a serial killer?? Come on! The antagonists never succeeded to bring up with arguments with profound reasoning to back them up.

Some say the popularity of Death Note reflects a society where morality is on the demise. Kids make up their own gods and reject conventional wisdoms and values, their ability to wreck havoc are limited only by their lack of power. Truth, justice and evilness are just distant concepts that bear no weight on everyday life. I couldn’t agree more. Keeping a blind faith on being “good” and staying on the “correct” path – why so and how does it matter? Light’s intentions are more authentic and sincere than those who put on an all dignified face but act with double standards. Despite the lives he had taken, his youth and innocence is a stark contrast to the hypocrisy of many grown ups. In the film, he remains true to this character and beliefs till the very end. His dying words, instead of the laughable “i don’t want to die” original, was “Kira is justice”.

Of course, the single greatest mistake Light has made was being impulsive enough to take on L’s challenge. That fatal blow led him into difficult subsequent situations. His shrewd attitude towards the duel, shown by his unwillingness to give up portions of his life in exchange of “the eyes”, is a demonstration of the selfishness of humans and eventually hit back at him. In the film, L was able to win because he dared to put absolutely everything at stake. He who isn’t committed enough may win small games but will eventually loose the battle.
So, is the question “is kira evil or justice?” still relevant? Kira is certainly no evil, but it is impossible for mere mortals to act on behalf on Kira and not cause major disaster. History tells us that humans could never transcend their own weaknesses when granted with the power of god.