anarchic-miscellany

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I love "Shadow Hearts" for many reasons (its oddly involving plot, unique setting, colourful characters, genuinely nightmarish beastiary, and its cool battle mechanic to shake things up a bit) and special mention must go to my favourite party member Lord Valentine the Vampire of Germany. Rather than having him be something eloquent or era appropriate like "Hans" or "Gunther", the makers opted to call him "Keith". Rather than evoking a debonair, mysterious swordsmaster and sultry vampire, it brings to mind a honking great big Cockney lad who'll put the frighteners up ya for messin' about with Big Mickey. It's a delightful game.

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I still get chills every time that I think about the emotional rollercoaster of "Anora", it's one of those movies which feels like a draining, wild night out. Finding out that there was a poster to Strawberry from the absolutely spectacular "Red Rocket" was icing on the cake. I now want Mikey Saber (legitimately my favourite performance in a film), the shark who never stops swimming, coming into the orbit of Anora (you absolutely know Strawberry went off on her own and ditched his sorry ass) and sparks flying as these two maniacs go on their adventures. She'd absolutely know he was playing her, and he would know she sees through his bullshit, but they'd have this toxic parasocial dance going on, I'd love it. Electric performances in both movies. I need to watch "Red Rocket" again

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Genuinely heartbreaking to open this month's "Neo" and discover that it is the last ever issue. I'll miss Jonathan Clements' columns on the state of the industry, and his delightfully droll deep dives into the magazines in Japan; I'll miss Andrew Osmond's consistent previews and reviews; cherish David West's enlightening interviews (some of the only ones around with his subjects) and in depth reviews of the movies; the consistency of Alex West; and forever cherish the delightful stories of Emily Lovell and Mark Guthrie as "boots on the ground" - and all of it held together with the infectious drive of Gemma Cox. And that's just the current legendary crop. It brought me many, many wonderful discoveries, recommendations and nuanced pieces of news, for somebody who still enjoys a haptic, tactile copy to treasure and refer to, tangible and real. I felt in wonderful company with it.

I discovered not just series which I adore and cherish now ("Penguindrum", "Tiger and Bunny", all time great "Baccano" and "Durarara" to name just a few) growing ever excited for their release or (and now I really feel old) re-releases, but also some movies I now absolutely cannot get enough of, and these legends were even the only ones who told me about Guitar Wolf playing 4 dates in the UK, well over a decade ago, which remains one of the greatest and strangest gigs of my life, and a fond memory forever shared with dear friends. I still disagree with them on "Code Geass" though, it sucks. I'm sorry, I just attack "Code Geass" unprompted, it's reflexsive. They'd talk about the series from the past I love, in deep dives, and help me plumb the depths to find things I discovered anew, like "El Hazard" and "Gunbuster". In the digital age, where "traditional journalism" is seen as a dying breed, and everything must be constant, online and freeform - we shall see. It is time for "the future" to put up or shut up. Mr Clements summed it up best: "Goodbye, everybody. All these worlds are yours."

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Thought I'd do something a little nicer after the emotionally knotted and glorious soaring "Anora". Did not expect to cry 3 times at "The Wild Robot" but here we are

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"Anora" is spellbinding. Sean Baker has done it again. Film of the year.

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Kudos to "The Matrix: Resurrections" for many things (namely eviscerating the idea of a legacy sequel and letting the makers burn the entire thing to the ground on their own terms rather than let ghouls own it), but for me personally: Machines among the crew. Aside from looking cool, it shows that even literal agents of the State can find it within themselves to do the right thing... It's never too late to change.

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I often get it into my head to defend anime, by talking about the eternally poignant "Planetes": a character focused human drama about blue collar space workers, tackling the ideas of corporate overreach, the class system transferring into space and how fucking shitty that is, idealism vs cynicism, mankind's dream and desire for the stars, what that would look like when corporations get there first, grief, and PTSD, among more; all through the office politics of it all. It'a a beautiful, thought provoking show with endearing characters. Then I'll remember that shit like "Code Geass" and "Musume Pretty Derby" exist and shut my fucking mouth

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A lot of people are mocking "Meglopolis" for being pretentious. But, if you listen to the words they are saying: it is also gibberish.

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Shoutout to James Hong. No particular reason, the man's just a fucking legend and never misses.

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Todd: "The Cardigans had a small cult following in the Uk." Me, Todd. It was me. I still am that cult following.

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Shoutout to "Black Dynamite" for most things, including but not limited to finding an actor who can do a Richard Nixon impersonation and use nunchuks, and does both of them well. I like to imagine he was preparing his whole life for this moment.

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Lisa Loeb and Limp Bizkit: Limp Lisa Loeb Bizkit.

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Reading "One Piece" for the First Time: Part 12

So the Idiot has led his crew to an isle of dinosaurs, leading me to believe we are in the "guest chapter written by the author's nephew" arc. Still, bit early to be blowing your load on the dinosaur card, isn't it Oda? Well, anyway, our crew of morons befriend a pair of men the size of Dolph Lundgren in an honestly quite nice little tale of 2 eternal warriors duking it out for centuries. Kind of like the plot of the Rocky series, to be honest. The arrival of Candle Man and (honestly, I've already forgotten who the others are) to the scene to make a fight occur is forced and honestly a bit annoying to me: I just want to watch The Meme in Progress scavenge and befriend a minature Dolph Lundgren, he deserves it! I just wanted to watch The Cartographer with a Brain Cell chill out! But no, we have to fight some fucking melty boy and his waxy crew (I'm pretty sure they were our entrant at Eurovision in 1966) after setting off gunpowder in a giant's face. Can't we have nice things? Anyway, more shenanigans happen, and the fight is just sort of flowing right through me at this point. We get some shonen shit where our crew of evolutionary dead-ends are frozen in place with magic candle wax (wut) and a woman with a candelabra for hair threatens to set them aflame, and it takes The Idiot about 50 minutes to realise that wax melts, so maybe they should use fire? The Himbo goes Guy Fucking Fieri on this place by covering his swords and fuckboi hair in fire, which was alright I guess. I still don't know what the hell these "Baroque" (yeah you said it, man, these guys go out of their way to make everyone else look basic, yet still got upstaged by the swag on Django and Kuro. God I miss the Cat Man, he ruled) dudes even want: my guy, you have magic, why do you want a Dolph Lundgren? You just fucking one shot that guy? What was your plan, to hold the world's shittest cage fight auction? To be fair I was entertained watching them fight like Godzilla, so I'm on board with that plan. You'll print money.

Also where did the rodeo pirate stripper go? You can't just drop a rodeo stripper on me then fob me off with a fucking dinosaur island where Dolph Lundgren fights Lolph Dundgren. Alright, actually, you can, I'm down for that. But this entire fucking arc was absolutely worth it for that extended gag of the Giga Chad wandering off to find some lizard meat (weirdly not a euphamism) and missing the entire plot, and sit down for a fucking tea break like the absolute mad chad that he is, then RECEIVE the plot by mistake because the villain called up on a snail phone. Art.

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As ridiculously fun as "Daybreakers" is, channeling that B-movie spirit we've sorely missed, I am convinced that the makers started at that ludicrously bloody and fun lift-cure sequence and worked backwards

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Rewatched "Argo" last night: there's a cool little detail in a scene halfway through. Zeljko Ivanek's character is delivering some emergency news, and he's dressed in a tuxedo with a loosened bow tie. Clearly he's just been rushed away from some fancy event to go straight here and deliver it. I dunno, I think it's neat.

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When did our species decide we didn't want Lisa Loeb anymore? She's still excellent, guys. For shame! (Her cover of "Big Rock Candy Mountain" is lovely.)