#I also loved Mifune's acting in some scenes

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Barbara Stanwyck (Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Double Indemnity)—I hope someone else has submitted better propaganda than I because I don't want my girl's prospects to rest on me just yelling PLEASE VOTE FOR MY TERRIBLE HOT GIRLFRIEND. She is a delight in everything! She is often a sexy jerk! (It's most of the plot of Baby Face!) Even when she plays a "good girl" (as an example, Christmas in Connecticut, which more people should see) she's still kind of a jerk and I love her for it! She won't take men's shit and she sure wouldn't take mine!

Setsuko Hara (Tokyo Story, Late Spring, The Idiot)— "'The only time I saw Susan Sontag cry,' a writer once told me, his voice hushed, 'was at a screening of a Setsuko film.' What Setsuko had wasn’t glamour—she was just too sensible for that—it was glow, one that ebbed away and left you concerned, involved. You got the sense that this glow, like that of dawn, couldn’t be bought. But her smiles were human and held minute-long acts, ones with important intermissions. When she looked away, she absented herself; you felt that she’d dimmed a fire and clapped a lid on something about to spill. Over the last decade, whenever anyone brought up her lips—'Setsuko’s eternal smile,' critics said, that day we learned that she’d died—I thought instead of the thing she made us feel when she let it fall." - Moeko Fujii

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Setsuko Hara:

One of the best Japanese actresses of all time; a symbol of the golden era of Japanese cinema of the 1950s After seeing a Setsuko Hara film, the novelist Shūsaku Endō wrote: "We would sigh or let out a great breath from the depths of our hearts, for what we felt was precisely this: Can it be possible that there is such a woman in this world?"

One of the greatest Japanese actresses of all time!! Best known for acting in many of Yasujiro Ozu's films of the 40s and 50s. Also she has a stunning smile and beautiful charm!

Linked gifset

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She's considered by some to be the greatest Japanese actress of all time! In Kurosawa's The Idiot she haunts the screen, and TOTALLY steals the show from Mifune every time she appears.

She's considered by some to be the greatest Japanese actress of all time! In Kurosawa's The Idiot she haunts the screen, and TOTALLY steals the show from Mifune every time she appears.

"No other actor has ever mastered the art of the smile to the same extent as Setsuko Hara (1920–2015), a celebrated star and highly regarded idol who was one of the outstanding actors of 40s and 50s Japanese cinema. Her radiant smile floods whole scenes and at times cautiously undermines the expectations made of her in coy, ironic fashion. Yet her smile's impressive range also encompasses its darker shades: Hara's delicate, dignified, melancholy smile with which she responds to disappointments, papers over the emotions churning under the surface, and flanks life's sobering realizations. Her smiles don't just function as a condensed version of her ever-precise, expressive, yet understated acting ability, they also allow the very essence of the films they appear in to shine through for a brief moment, often studies of the everyday, post-war dramas which revolve around the break-up of family structures or the failure of marriages. Her performances tread a fine line between social expectation and personal desire in post-war Japan, as Hara attempts to lay claim to the autonomy of the female characters she plays – frequently with a smile." [link]

Leading lady of classic Japanese cinema with a million dollar smile

Maybe the most iconic Japanese actress ever? She rose to fame making films with Yasujiro Ozu, becoming one of the most well-known and beloved actresses in Japan, working from the 30s through the 60s in over 100 hundred. She is still considered one of the greatest Japanese actresses ever, and in my opinion, just one of the greatest actresses of all time. And she was HOT! Satoshi Kon's film Millennium Actress was largely based on her life and her career.

Barbara Stanwyck:

"THE leading lady of the golden age of hollywood. One of the only actresses to work independent of a studio, making short-term contracts that enabled her to make movies wherever she wanted. She had so much range, and could act in basically any genre. She's been rumored to be a lesbian literally since she was active in Hollywood; most notable is the rumor that she had a long time on-and-off relationship with famously bi Joan Crawford, her "best friend" for decades (They lived right next door to one another). She also lived with Helen Ferguson, her "live-in publicist" for many years. She was the quintessential femme fatale in Double Indemnity, and really pushed sexual boundaries in her pre-code films like Baby Face, and the famous screwball The Lady Eve, where she plays basically a downlow domme. Allegedly, when a journalist asked her if she was a lesbian, she straight up threw him out of her house. She even played a lesbian in Walk on the Wild Side"

"THE queen of screwball comedies. I adore her, I'd kill for her, I will cry if she's not gonna win this poll."

"listen ok she had awful politics she was a mccarthyist right wing wacko BUT she's so incredibly hot that i've deluded myself into believing i could fix her. if you see her onscreen she carries herself in a way that's just so effortlessly sexy AND she has just a stunning face. imo she was at her hottest in the 1940s but even as early as the late 1920s she had a rly captivating screen presence and just a beautiful face, and then post-1950 she was just irresistibly milfy so really she was just always incredibly hot. she was also an incredibly talented actress who was equally stellar in melodrama, film noir, and unhinged screwball comedy. the blonde wig they made her wear in double indemnity is notoriously silly looking but she still looks sexy in it so that's gotta count for something. i've watched so many terrible movies just for a chance at seeing her that i think her estate should be paying me damages."

"Not often thought of for her sultriness, Barbara Stanwyck was incredible in that she could actually choose to be hot if the role called for it, and then have a glow-down to look ordinary for another role. She wasn't the most beautiful or effervescent, but damn did she have rizz. Watch her with Gary Cooper in Ball of Fire teaching him about "yum-yum" or with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve whispering huskily into his ear."

"She is always the smartest woman in the room. Watching her play Henry Fonda like a befuddled fiddle in The Lady Eve was a highlight of my life. Femme fatale in Double Indemnity, comedy queen in Ball of Fire. She can do anything."

"She was part of my gay awakening"

"SHE'S A PRE-CODE QUEEN. She did everything, drama, comedy. The most beautiful woman in the world to watch weep. Beg for to step on you with those legs. Fun Babs story: Ginger Rogers was offered the role in Ball of Fire but said, “Oh, I would never play that part, she’s too common.” So they called Barbara Stanwyck and they said “We offered this to Ginger Rogers but she’s turned it down, would you be interested?” And she read the script and she said; “You bet! I LOVE playing common broads. [link]"

[cesarescabinet]

(this is spacekrakens lmao) dude idk anything about like 1950s Japanese cinema, do you have any recommendations? looking for stuff to toss on the watchlist now that I'm a bit burned out on horror (unless you have some horror recs)

Hey! If you’re curious about Japanese cinema (particularly 1950s), there’s a lot of avenues to explore! Musicals, crime, horror, historical—it all depends on what mood you’re in. (Putting this under a read more because I'm DEFINITELY going to be long posting about this!!!) Hope this is useful to you lol.

(Also noting if anybody wants to add to this list with their own recommendations feel free!!)

With old school Japanese cinema, I’ll always recommend Akira Kurosawa (obviously). He’s made some of the best Japanese movies (and arguably, the best movies of all time imo) and I feel like his work is a good gateway. It’s readily available on physical media/streaming too.

Specifically ‘50s stuff; Hidden Fortress (1958) is a good adventure flick whose structure was swiped for Star Wars, Throne of Blood (1957) is Japanese Macbeth if you like Shakespeare, and if you don’t mind a longer movie Seven Samurai (1954) includes Toshiro Mifune acting like this;

Gotta admit, though—my personal favorites from Kurosawa don’t come from the 1950s; Drunken Angel (1948) and Yojimbo (1961). One has a pathetic gangster as the main lead, the other is just a solid, breezy proto-action film (also has my beloved Unosuke but that's besides the point)

Some personal favorites of mine from the 1950s:

Life of a Horse Trader (1951) is a bittersweet story about a man trying to be a good single father to his son in the backdrop of Hokkaido. He tends not to be great at it. Stars Toshiro Mifune, the most famous face of Japanese cinema and for good reason!

Conflagration/Enjo (1958) is a single Buddhist acolyte’s fall into quiet insanity. Raizo Ichikawa is another amazing actor who I love! Also includes Tatsuya Nakadai who is the GOAT (in my heart).

Godzilla (1954) is AMAZING! If you liked Gozilla Minus One, it took a lot of familiar cues from this movie. It also technically counts as horror, depending on your definition.

Japanese horror from the 1950s:

Ugetsu (1951) (Not one I’ve seen personally, but it’s on Criterion)

The Beast Shall Die (1958) (American Psycho, but in Showa Japan. Tatsuya Nakadai is terrifying in this and absolutely despicable—stylish movie tho!)

Ghost of Yotsuya (1959) (Old-school Japanese ghost story. Honestly, there are so many different versions of this story on film that you can pick which version to watch and go from there—I’m partial to the 1965 version myself, because of the rubber rats and Tatsuya Nakadai playing a crazy person).

The Lady Vampire (1959) is the OG western-style vampire movie from Japan. Plays around with the mythos a lot, but hey our Dracula looks like this;

Misc movies that I think are neat or good gateway movies:

The Samurai Trilogy by Hiroshi Inagaki, which stars Toshiro Mifune as Miyamoto Musashi. Found that people otherwise uninterested in Japanese cinema really enjoyed this!

You Can Succeed, Too (1964) is one of my favorites from the ‘60s, also directed by Eizō Sugawa. A fun satire on the corporate world that's super colorful with catchy songs.

The Sword of Doom (1966) is also another favorite of mine, starring my beloved Tatsuya Nakadai as another bastard man (seriously though Ryunosuke is FASCINATING to me--). Fun gore effects and action scenes!

Kwaidan (1964) is an anthology of Japanese folk tales, labeled a horror film but in that kinda sorta old-school way. Beautifully shot by my favorite Japanese director Masaki Kobayashi (who, if you like this you should seriously check out his other work!)

[thealmightyemprex]

Steven Spielbergs 1941 is...A doozy

I have seen the last of Spielbergs 70's output,the World War II comedy 1941.It is infamous for being Spielbergs first flop,though it has a cult fanbase......I understand both

WArning if you want to check out this film , this film contains racial slurs and a comedic subplot built aroun sexual assault

This 1979 film is about a town in California panicking due to thinking the Japanese while the actual Japanese plan to attack Hollywood....Hijinx ensue

So the film was written by Robert Zemekis ,and Spielberg directed it on a whim............You can feel both of those while watching ,cause I think

1.This film is more suited to Zemekis

2.You can tell this plane has no real engine

So I am frustrated by this film because I think it is a bad movie .....With moments of greatness .Comedy is so subjective ,but I can say ,I found the film really funny.I genuinely like movie where things escalate to a level of insanity and by god when this film goes off the wall I love it .The film also has a great cast as the film is a wacky ensamble piece ,there are so many I cant list them all : highlights are Christopher Lee as a Nazi (Getting to show off his impressive German ),Toshiro Mifune as the main villain ,Muarry Hamilton and Eddie Deezen being this odd double act ,Nancy Allen as a woman with a plane fetish ,Warren Oats as a crazy Colonel ,and my favorite Robert Stack as Major General Stillwell (I think the scenes where he is watching and crying to Dumbo are some of my favorite scenes in the film ).I also love the premise of showing the damage people can do when they are paranoid .Also the ending is really perfect

.......Heres the problems though

1.Theres a major subplot where Treat Williams plays this very r*pey soldier and while yes he is a bad guy ,it is still played for humor.PAired with the LARGE amount of slurs ,it can be uncomfortable and some viewers might want to skip this

2.I have no clue what they wanted Dan Akroyds character to be because he starts off as the inspirational character.....But then he just acts like a lunatic after getting hit on the head .

3.THis might upset some people but I dont think the film uses John Belushi well.He plays this crazy pilot ,and I wish the film either had less or more of him,because as is it doesnt feel like the film has enough

4.Theres to many characters and sadly very little center .The closest the film has to a hero is Bobby Di Cicco as Wally,but he is just such a non entity he gets lost in the shuffle

5.TOO MANY CHARACTERS AND IT FEELS LIKE A LOT OF THESE PERFROMERS ARE BEING WASTED

6.The pacing and length is attrocious,this should NOT Be two hours,its honestly my biggest complaint

7.I love most of the chaos,but it can get a lil grating after a while .Theres a lot of screaming in this film

I think this film does have an audience,but it is a mess .I definately laughed a lot ,but I cant say I reccomend it to everyone .If you like chaos on film,just love seeing these kind of large scale bonkers comedies ,I think it is worth a watch but go in knowing it is a MESS of a film

@ariel-seagull-wings @amalthea9 @angelixgutz @princesssarisa @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @goodanswerfoxmonster @filmcityworld1

[startledpixel]

2024 stuff I am watching/playing/reading

I'm trying to watch more movies and read more this year, in addition to gaming. Before I go on RGG8 hiatus on Thursday, I see people do this on twt and I wanted to do it too. I was gonna add ratings but I got in my head about it. Maybe in the future. This post only includes media finished this month.

Movies

Rashomon - Toshiro Mifune is so fearless in his acting, and it's fitting that we see his telling of the story first, where he gallops through the tangled woods with swashbuckling ease. I also really love Machiko Kyo's work here, it feels like the perspective of her character changes a lot based on who's telling the story, and she embodies all of her versions well.

Seven Samurai - In both of these movies it's interesting to see the origin of all these tropes I've seen in other media. The realist leader, the crude rogue, the eager youngster (Isao Kimura why are you such a smiling cutie), the serious swordsman. Even the coordination with the villagers and Kikuchiyo being the butt of jokes reminded me of ATLA a little bit. I also liked how easy it was to follow the strategy and eventual village siege scenes.

Books

Our Wives Under the Sea - Oceanic horror and lesbians sounded great, but overall this is possibly not for me. Some passages were striking, and I get that the pacing is supposed to feel drawn out because that's the uncertain situation the characters are both in, but the overall tone felt dispassionate and eventually felt hard to maintain a connection to until the last 40 pages.

Games

Dave the Diver - Good gameplay, but two annoyances:

Why is everyone so unnecessarily mean to Dave? Basho and a few other characters warm up to him but with everyone else it still feels mostly transactional by the end, saved only by the fact that Dave is good-natured (easily taken advantage of?).

I don't like when you unlock something and the UI goes "New Content!" Like damn, this isn't a mobile game, peel the product management sticker off.

That said, as a game the diving/diner combo is fantastic, there's a surprising amount of variety beyond the gameplay loop, and I learned a bunch about sea creatures (in addition to stuff from Our Wives, hahah). But I think Spiritfarer set a high bar for story in management sims, and I wanted this game's story and characterization to match its bells and whistles.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - My experience with Shu Takumi games is that there's sometimes a certain arbitrariness to game choices (my first game of his was Ghost Trick). But I did get used to it after a while. I really liked the continuity and development between cases, especially with Edgeworth's character, and I think these games have absolutely peak character design, animations, and musical motifs. But please, why was the mascot vase rotation in the last episode so finicky??

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! - Very fucked, lives up to the hype.

last seen online - A "psychological horror escape room game", it took me a little over an hour to play. Enjoyable, not too obtuse to figure out, and it really does capture the AIM/Winamp/Xanga era aesthetic (though I did spot a few anachronisms). I'd like to check out more analogue horror media like this.

[longagoitwastuesday]

The Toshiro Mifune version of Cyrano de Bergerac was such a pleasant surprise. I loved how they did Cyrano's friendship with Christian, and how they enhanced Roxane's love for poetry and the fact that she writes back and replies during the balcony scene

[petty-crush]

“The Hidden Fortress”

-two buffoon thieves find themselves witnesses to an increasingly absurd (and delightful) war of clans

-Akira Kurosawa and his big brassy style of filmmaking just makes me happy; even films I like look stillwater next to him

-one of his greatest strengths is his unpredictable and elastic editing

-a quick scene of stoping guards from ratting out a princess turns into a ten minute duel between generals

+and bounces back like a key in a lock

-Toshiro Mifune absolutely projects the presence of a general who should be followed to the end of the earth

-this whole film has a lived in, squalled, medieval vibe

+I fucking love it

-again, there is some cinema magic in threes; the two thieves are obtusely amusing, and the silent strength general is disarming; but together they form a riveting troupe of eccentrics

-the part where the thieves witness the last warrior of a clan killed nakedly via horseback is shocking

-even more so then his other films, Kurosawa’s influences from the silent age of film ring loud

+a scene of a crowd on the steps is clear DW Griffith and any moment of horse riding is awesomely John Ford (but in Kurosawa’s own voice)

-the princess is completely badass; her moments of covert silence is an emotional canvas and her carefully chosen mask droppings are tender inducing

-I again note how Kurosawa is amazing for placing scenes with multiple people but not cutting angles; we see all the faces and how they react to dropping their guard

-the part where the princess chides the rival general for blaming Mifune for the suffering the rival’s boss put on him is devastating

+as is her complete willingness to die, having tasted earthy beauty

-greatly amused how characters can be added(the prostitute)and subtracted (the two gold carriers) without a single loss of momentum

-I love Mifune’s laugh

-the widescreen film stock cinematography (and fluid camera work) is so suited to Kurosawa it’s a little surprising it took 18 films(!) and 15 years for him to fit his hand in like a glove

-think about that for a second; a film maker got to make almost twenty films (some rather great) before hitting his full stride

+this is why nurturing artists(and letting them practice in public) is so important to our collective well being

-it contributes to our hearts, even if in a galaxy far far away

-this film definitely has a 7th act; it’s almost another mini movie in the last 15 minutes

-I never get use to (nor do I hope I ever) the undertow of humanism in Kurosawa’s work

+it is impossible to imagine his films without it

-Kurosawa really is the eccentric’s master magician

-I cannot imagine this film being a minute shorter. It is just packed

-Also surprisingly funny as fuck at times

-This is a film that thrills the heart and makes people want to do their best work, in art or solidarity

[nyxravessnow]

Shin Tenimyu - Musical The New Prince of Tennis The First Stage  Report

I saw the stream of the first performance of the The New Prince of Tennis musical awhile back and I wanted to write some of my thoughts. But I didn’t really enjoy the show and as I love tenimyu with all my heart, as it is my favourite show, I find it much harder to be super negative about the show when talking specifically about the show scene by scene. But with the casting news for 4th I thought that I would finish this so anyone who hasn’t seen the show can know my thoughts. 

I tried to finish it, I really did. But I have no motivation to really talk in length about this show in a deep dive sort of way. I will keep what I did for the 1st half of the show but after that it will only be kinda a summary of my thoughts. 

I have only seen the first night and I do not intend to see anymore of this show. I was incredibly disappointed and didn’t not make me want to see the show again or really any of the shin tenimyu shows but I will still watch those as a bad first show doesn’t mean all of them will be bad but I don’t think shin tenimyu will ever really be my thing. 

I will say that Tokki, Raima and Maeda-chan are actors I love so I am a little biased towards them

Bare in mind that this was the first performance and while I am not taking that into consideration for my criticisms things could definitely improve before the final show, the one that will be on dvd. 

Overall the show was about a 4-6/10 for me. There was only really one scene that brought it to a 6 and without it it would be a 4. 

Music: 2/10.

Direction: 1.5/10.

Acting: 6/10

Spoilers under the cut

Actors

Imamaki Hikaru - Echizen Ryouma: All round a solid 6/10. He was cute and delivered his lines very well but still has far to go with his singing and the design on his hair really sticking out from the sides of his hat made him seem much younger which I was not a fan of. This was a problem I had with early Nichika of them making Echizen seem too young and innocent. Like of course he is 13 and is a child but he isn’t this cute adorable boy. He can be cocky and he isn’t all innocent so I hope they don’t keep making the Echizen’s appear super young in this way.

Yamada Kento - Tezuka Kunimitsu: 8/10. I don’t think I really have any issues with his Tezuka at all. He had a very good voice, really good acting. 

Houjuyama Shun - Momoshiro Takeshi: 6/10. He has a really good voice for Momo when speaking but his singing leaves a lot to be desired. He didn’t really do very much in the show so I can’t rate him higher than a 6 as I don’t remember very much that he did bar the Oni match.

Gaku - Tachibana Kippei: 7/10. Similarly to Shun I don’t really remember him but his singing was quite good so this is where he landed

Takahashi Ryouya - Atobe Keigo: I’m sorry 1/10. He is an excellent singer and performer but there was nothing about his performance that made me think of Atobe. His voice was quite high, he was not very confident (Blending into the background when it wasn’t his match), saying his lines softly, moving softly. If I couldn’t see the wig I would not have known he was Atobe. I really hope that he can gain some confidence to play Atobe or else I think he was the wrong actor for the role. 

Maeda Ryuutarou - Kirihara Akaya/Hiramatsu Raima - Tooyama Kintarou: 10/10. I put these two here together because what I want to say is the same for both. You could absolutely tell they had been in the show before. The two brought confidence not many others had to their roles. They controlled their stage and as soon as they stepped onto it they were their characters. Every movement and every line was exactly like the character. I am so happy that they are continuing in tenimyu and hope that they will help the cast get to their level by the end of this run or maybe in future shows.

Takemoto Yusuke - Shiraishi Kuranosuke: 9/10. By far my favourite of the new cast members. I know a lot of people were apprehensive that he might play Shiraishi as sexy too much but he didn’t at all. He was excellent. The only reason that he isn’t a five is there are still some tiny things he could polish but once those are polished he will be perfect.

Matsushima Hiroki - Chitose Senri: 7/10. Ngl I keep forgetting that he was in this show. His doubles with Tachibana was quite forgetful and he didn’t have any major moments but was also quite good and not many problems in his performance. 

Shintani David - Lilident Krauser: 10/10. Like Maeda-chan and Raima you could tell that he had been in the show before, albeit much less than they had. For anyone who doesn’t know, he was an understudy and doubled as the part of Lilident in vs Rikkai Nationals. Very solid performance

(Warning I know much less about the high schoolers so this will be more on their acting in general rather than whether they were good as that character)

Ono Kento - Tokugawa Kazuya: ?/10. He was barely in the show and I have no idea how I could rate his performance. Pretty solid.

Okamoto Yuuki - Oni Juujirou: 8/10. Solid performance. Good enough singing for the role.

Aiba Hiroki - Irie Kanata: He wasn’t in the show so I can’t write a judgement of his performance

Yasue Kazuaki - Irie Kanata: 9/10. He was so excellent. Singing, acting, everything was top notch. Similarly to Yusuke he’s only not 10 because he has some small things to polish.

Chanhe (dunno how to spell his name) - Nakagauchi Sotomichi: 6/10. No real comments, pretty solid. 

Matsushima Yuunosuke - Yamato Yudai: 6/10. Pretty good, singing okay. 

Suzuki Ryouhei - Miyako Shinobu: 6/10. Didn’t have many lines or do very much, pretty overshadowed by Tokki (Will cover him next). What he did do was good, singing could use some improvement.

Tauchi Tokihiro - Matsudaira Chikahiko: 10/10. Absolutely perfect. He brought so much energy and character to his performance that I don’t think any other new actor brought. He owned the stage, even competing with Maeda-chan for my attention when on stage. He had so much presence and would draw your eyes to him. He made everything seem so natural and not acted. Like the continuing actors he became his character on stage rather than acted them out.

Takahashi Shunichi - Suzuki Shun and Tsurimoto Minami - Washio Issa: 6/10. Didn’t do too much, pretty solid performance.

Murakami Kouhei - Kurobe Yukio/Izumi Shuhei - Saito Itaru: 6/10. Pretty standard for a coach. Singing was good.

Kishi Yuuji - Mifune Nyuudou: 10/10. Absolutely amazing. Everything about his performance was perfect. By FAR the best voice in the cast, incredible singing.

Direction and choreography

I am not a director so I cannot be too specific about details but I can say what I liked and didn’t. (Every comment is specifically about the direction not singing or acting). I have studied theatre though so I do have some insight from that angle Also, please don’t criticise what I classified as the same scene and what as different. 

Scene 1: Echizen in America, 1st song

Good beginning, very solid for a first show opening. 

Scene 2: High schoolers practicing while middle schoolers arrive, coach song

Felt very reminiscent of the vs Fudomine shows where Echizen first arrives at Seigaku, I really liked this.

Scene 3: Middle schoolers and high schoolers collecting dropped balls, middle schooler song

Was not a fan. I didn’t like how close everyone was but also randomly placed. I know it is inevitable with such a small cast of middle schoolers but I would have liked to see them more with their teammates in little clusters and slowly appear in front of Seigaku. Maybe even projecting images of other middle schoolers getting balls if none are to appear. 

I did like how Echizen arrives out of the back at the end though

Scene 4: Oni vs Momoshiro, Oni solo, Momo solo

Done pretty well, will talk in other section about stage design. Both actors were solid in their tennis, no missed moves that I saw. Built up Oni’s power well, showing him as a strong player. Showed Momo’s desperation well in the blocking.

Was not a fan of only having unknown high schoolers watching on. Makes sense in an anime or manga that has time to build up and unlimited cast but this show only has three hours to build up characters that may never return or become more important later. They did not need lines but would have been interesting to see them watching the match

Scene 5: Saito and Kurobe

Pretty simple scene, just the two talking. Pretty gay. 

Scene 6: Saito talking to the middle schoolers about elimination matches, Saito solo

I think the middle schoolers could do with being less clumped up around him as it makes the cast of characters seem small and does not give an indication of scale. Liked the stillness of the middle and high schoolers during his song. 

Scene 7: Echizen and Kinchan meet Tokugawa and Oni, Echizen vs Tokugawa, Echizen and Tokugawa duet 

I really love the way Oni and Tokugawa are tall and imposing and unmoving or slow moving on the outside of the stage where as Echizen and Kinchan are being active in the middle, shows contrast between the characters well. 

I really like there not being a net here reinforcing that Kinchan and Echizen just run off and do their own thing with no regard for officiality. 

Did not like the two random ensemble cast members appearing to watch and commentate, felt very weird and slightly meta. 

Scene 8: Elimination matches

I have EXTREMELY mixed feelings here. On the one hand I think the direction is excellent with the spotlight, the figures who lose falling and the single lines echoing. On the other hand, I hate that they didn’t have many of the matches and skipped over them completely, especially the lack of cast members (which I will touch on later). If they do the elimination matches in another show and this was building up to it then I take back my negative comments and I’ll be very happy about that. But if not I think this was not enough to cover them, especially since so many were missed out

Scene 9: Kinchan vs Oni, Kinchan and Oni duet

I really love this scene. A lot of, again, slow movements from Oni contrasting the never still form of Kinchan. Probably my favourite choreography from the show with Kinchan darting back under Oni’s legs. Doubles to show Oni’s maturity vs Kinchan’s childishness as well as showing Oni not taking Kinchan too seriously and letting him just run around aimlessly before he beats him.

Scene 10: Irie and Chitose talking

No real comments, they just stood and talked. 

Scene 11: Saito takes Kinchan and Echizen to the mountain

Liked them lying on the floor together, part of a series of things linking Kinchan and Echizen together. It was a bit weird seeing Tokugawa just watching them lie on the floor and catching their breath before giving them a message and leaving. Liked Saito picking them up by their collars, gives the impression that he doesn’t care that they are children. Which he doesn’t. Scene of climbing suffers from lack of actors as this could be a good place to add in comedy, which the show is lacking, but since they only have Momo, Echizen and Kinchan, none is created. 

Scene 12: Mifune solo (ft. Echizen and Kinchan )

Loved how he is sat in the beginning, instantly shows his character. Along with his heavy slow movements and slightly hunched back. Liked it showing the middle schoolers climbing in the background, showing that he is not caring about their effort or wellbeing in getting to him. Liked the breaks to show Echizen and Kinchan and the complete shift in tone, will talk more about later in song, but also in lighting and speed of movement.

Scene 13: Middle schoolers arrive at the camp, hs vs ms outside match

Love the distance between the high schoolers, creating a sense of scale. Despite looking down usually being a sign of strength from the person standing you got a sense of Mifune’s power as they are all looking down on him sipping his sake. 

Loved the lighting for the high schoolers vs middle schoolers match. Fluid movements of the hs vs the random movements of the middle schoolers. 

Scene 14: Training back at the main camp, ms getting their place on court 5

Really liked the running on a off stage but would have liked to see characters return to stage and run off again like a consistant training menu and would have liked to see the words detailing their training be on the screen for a tad longer. 

Liked the short matches between the ms and hs but would have liked to see the hs look a bit more helpless in their movements.

Scene 15: Coaches talking, court 5 and 3 meet, Irie and Tokugawa chat 

Coaches talking is pretty standard

Liked the ms entering from different sides vs court 3 entering from the same side. Gives the impression that court 3 is a team whereas 5 is a lot of good individual players thrown together. 

Chat again, pretty standard

Scene 16: Oni talking to his court, court 5 song

I like them being spread out. Like them walking around at the beginning of the song with only Oni spotlighted to show he is bringing them together. 

Scene 17: Yamato and Tezuka talk 

Like the distance between them, showing how far apart they had grown due to time and also in personality, contrasted later during their duet.

Scene 18: Lining up, Nakagauchi vs Liladent

Liked contrast between Oni being just behind court 5 whereas Tokugawa is behind the bench (?). Of course court 3 isn’t Tokugawa’s court but it reminded me of Oni actively helping his court vs Tokugawa sending Echizen away to improve.

Pretty standard tenimyu match with no songs. Liked the show of Nakagauchi’s power by showing him being thrown into a fence, like Taka-san one of the strongest middle schoolers was in Shiten, but being unaffected by this. Of course I know it was done in the original so they also had to do it but I like how the direction is similar in both cases. 

Scene 19: Shiraishi and Akaya vs Miyako and Matsudaira

BEST SCENE OF THE SHOW. If every scene was like this one the show would be 10/10. Without this scene the show would be a 4/10 or perhaps lower.

Miyako and Matsudaira’s song was great.

Shiraishi’s solo was so good.

Shiraishi and Akaya’s duet is by far and away the best song in the show. The only song that really felt like ‘tenimyu’ and reminded me of what I loved about tenimyu. 

Scene 20: Camp training, Mifune sends Echizen/Kinchan/Momo to get Sake, Mifune solo

Pretty solid, suffering from a lack of actors and it felt a bit flat. Mifune’s singing was amazing again, though I think he did slightly get too many songs bc Mifune isn’t as important to the plot as the musical seems to make out, as far as I’m aware. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, that’s the first half. 

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ SOMETHING VERY NEGATIVE AND HARSH, PLEASE STOP HERE.

This show might be one of my least favourite 2.5d shows I have ever seen. The dancing was okay, the singing wasn’t great, the show did not feel well thoughtout and it was just so disappointing. So, many of the actors were rather underwhelming and despite so much going on the show felt boring. 

I may have not read the shintenipuri manga but I have seen the anime and it is really funny. This show was barely funny, so many jokes were cut out seemingly for no reason other than the characters who made the jokes not being there. But I do not understand why there weren’t there. I get they couldn’t have every shintenipuri character there but there are quite a few I think they could have added that would have brought a lot, not just to fill the numbers as the stage did feel quite empty quite a few times. Sanada, for example, would have been a very good addition to the cast he speaks to a few of the people there, he rallies the middle schoolers going up the mountain and they already use him quite a bit through voice recording so I do not see why they couldn’t actually cast him.

The show was just lacking the heart that normal tenimyu has. Every tenimyu show before this, even the ones I haven’t enjoyed as much like Remarkable Match Fudomine or Seigaku vs Shitenhoji 2nd season, made me want to watch them again. They still drew me in and got me invested in the characters, partly because of excellent chemistry between the actors. Honestly, so few of these actors had good chemistry with one another. Raima and Maeda-chan quite honestly felt good with everyone. Tokki and Ryouhei were good as Miyako and Matsudaira, Kento and Yuunosuke weren’t bad as Yamato and Tezuka and Ryoya and Kazu were pretty okay. I didn’t feel a connection between almost anyone else. I don’t know if this was the actors not feeling comfortable with each other or the fast pace of the show that left no time for actors to develop in character chemistry but I am leaning towards the 2nd as the backstage photos would suggest they got on well.

This show felt like tenimyu’s attempt to make a Toho show. And it did not work. The show took itself way too seriously instead of in normal tenimyu where they seem to have a blast and it’s okay to understand that the show is ridiculous. I don’t know if this is at all what they were attempting but with the new attitude and the actors from Toho, especially Mifune’s actor who they gave a lot of solos to, it certainly felt like that to me. 

I am not just being negative about shin tenimyu because I wanted tenimyu to stay the same forever. I was very prepared for new things in shin tenimyu but I don’t think the approach of let’s keep virtually nothing from past tenimyu really appealed to me. I honestly did like some of the new stuff they tried but I think they should have kept more things the same and phased stuff out later down the line when people were more onboard with shintenimyu. I.e. not in their first show.

I will talk more about the issues I had with casting in my next post as I will finally talk about the casting of 11th Seigaku and 4th Fudomine.  

RANT OVER

Okay, now I’ve gotten a lot of my negative thoughts out of the way.

Thanks for reading this half review, and I’m sorry it took so long. I personally wouldn’t recommened to anyone who is a massive tenimyu fan to check out this show but please don’t just take my word but see what other people think to.

Please continue to support my reviews and leave a like and maybe send me a message so we can chat about stuff.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Meet the Stars of Princess Connect Re:Dive

  Going into Princess Connect! Re:Dive, I knew little about it other than the fact that it was an adaptation of a mobile game. That didn’t bode well; my experiences with video game adaptations have been less than positive.

  Imagine my surprise, then, when it turned out to be hilarious. When a pair of ridiculous-looking wolves started dragging off our protagonist, I completely lost it. I found myself constantly laughing at the KONOSUBA-esque humor — it was only much later that I’d learn that Princess Connect and KONOSUBA shared the same director. It was also well-animated and delivered some impressive-looking action scenes and spell effects.

  At the end of the day, however, this is a comedy anime through and through. And comedy anime live and die on the basis of their voice acting. Unsurprising, then, that Princess Connect features an all-star voice cast, with the actors from the mobile game reprising their roles in the anime. Let’s take a look at some of the talented voice actors that bring the characters of Princess Connect, both the game and the anime, to life.

Pecorine (M·A·O)

    Mao Ichimichi, also known as M·A·O, is probably better known for her non-anime roles — she started off her career in tokusatsu (live-action often with heavy special effects), most notably playing Luka Millfy in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. She later ventured into anime voice acting. She voices the cheerful and energetic (and perpetually hungry) Pecorine in Princess Connect. She has also voiced Iris in Fire Force, Luluco in Space Patrol Luluco, Hondomachi in ID:Invaded, Vorona in Durarara, Bela in Bem, and Remi Ayasaki in the currently-airing Horimiya.

Kokkoro (Miku Ito)

    This isn’t the first time Miku Ito has played a character named Kokoro, having played the character of the same name in the BanG Dream! franchise. Her most well-known role is probably that of her own namesake: Miku from The Quintessential Quintuplets. Her other roles include Shimamura from Adachi and Shimamura, Ann Akagi from Action Heroine Cheer Fruits (in which she starred alongside fellow Princess Connect actor M·A·O), and Nana Mifune in Gleipnir.

Karyl (Rika Tachibana)

    Rika Tachibana has an extensive voice acting career in video games, featuring in such titles as Granblue Fantasy, Magia Record, The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Street Fighter V, and of course Princess Connect, where she plays Karyl. Tachibana’s anime voice acting roles include Sae Kobayakawa from The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Reiko from Shomin Sample, Naruse from The Island of Giant Insects — in which she starred alongside ... you guessed it ... M·A·O — and African Wild Dog from Kemono Friends.

Yuuki (Atsushi Abe)

    Our main protagonist Yuuki may not say much, but Atsushi Abe manages to make whatever little he says absolutely hilarious. Abe garnered widespread recognition for his role as Touma Kamijou in A Certain Magical Index and its spinoffs. His other roles include Moritaka Mashiro in Bakuman, Koichi Sakakibara in Another, Takashi in B Gata H Kei, Akiyuki in Xam’d: Lost Memories, Soya in Planet With, Inojin Yamanaka in Boruto, and Sougo in IDOLISH7.

Kaiser Insight (Shouta Aoi)

    It is not uncommon for female voice actors to voice male roles, especially younger characters. But male voice actors voicing female roles? Extremely rare. Shouta Aoi’s unique, “angelic” voice allows him to do so, with him voicing main Princess Connect villain Kaiser Insight. Aoi is better known as a singer, but he made his voice acting breakthrough as Ai Mikaze in Uta no Prince-sama. Since then, he has voiced Hideaki Tojo in Ace of the Diamond, Licht in The Royal Tutor, and will voice Subaru in the upcoming adaptation of Tokyo Babylon.

  Maho (Maaya Uchida)

  Maho is considered by the other Princess Connect characters to be slightly delusional, so of course she is voiced by Maaya Uchida, best-known as the voice of out-of-touch characters like Rikka from Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions and Ranko Kanzaki from The Idolmaster Cinderella Girls. Her non-delusional roles include Yoshioka from Blue Spring Ride, Norman from The Promised Neverland, Yuki Yoshino from Food Wars, and Catarina Claes from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom.

  Miyako (Sora Amamiya)

    I mentioned earlier how Princess Connect feels incredibly KONOSUBA-esque, both in its setting and its sense of humor. Makes perfect sense, then, for it to feature the voice of Sora Amamiya, known for voicing “useless” goddess Aqua from KONOSUBA. Amamiya’s other notable roles include Elizabeth from The Seven Deadly Sins, Touka from Tokyo Ghoul, Akame from Akame ga Kill, Kaori from One Week Friends, Isla from Plastic Memories, and Asseylum from Aldnoah.Zero.

  Hiyori (Nao Toyama)

  Nao Toyama played her first major role as Kanon Nakagawa in The World God Only Knows, which kickstarted her music career. Many people also know her as Yui Yuigahama in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, or Chitoge Kirisaki in Nisekoi. However, the role for which I personally recognise her the most is as the quiet Rin Shima in Laid-Back Camp. Other major roles include Karen in KINMOZA!, Ruka in Rent-a-Girlfriend, and Nozomi in Sound! Euphonium.

  Suzume (Aoi Yuki)

    Aoi Yuki has been earning plaudits this season for her energetic portrayal of the titular spider in So I’m a Spider, So What? Yuki has had many significant voice roles over the years, including Madoka from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Tanya in Saga of Tanya the Evil, Froppy in My Hero Academia, Tamaki in Fire Force, Diane in The Seven Deadly Sins, and Mami in Rent-a-Girlfriend.

Rei (Saori Hayami)

  Saori Hayami is one of the most in-demand voice actors of recent times. She is known for portraying Yukino Yukinoshita in My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and received considerable praise for her performance as Shoko Nishimiya in A Silent Voice. Her other notable roles include Shirayuki in Snow White with the Red Hair, Shinobu in Demon Slayer, Tsuruko in AnoHana: The Flower We Saw That Day, Yumeko Jabami in Kakegurui, and Himawari in Boruto.

  Jun (Ayako Kawasumi)

    Jun is a classic knight in metal armor. And who better to voice a knight than Ayako Kawasumi, best known as the voice of Saber in various installments of the Fate franchise. Kawasumi is also a talented pianist, which explains her role as Nodame in Nodame Cantabile. Some of her other major roles include Fuu in Samurai Champloo, Erina Pendleton in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Alice in Pandora Hearts, Melfina in Outlaw Star, Natsuki in Initial D, and Lafiel in Crest of the Stars.

Io (Shizuka Ito)

  Shizuka Ito won a “Best Actress in Supporting Roles” award at the 10th Seiyuu Awards for her performances as Meiko Shiraki in Prison School and Sailor Venus in Sailor Moon Crystal. Some of her other major performances are as Himawari in xxxHolic, Ran in Texhnolyze, Kaori Kanzaki in A Certain Magical Index, Boota and Darry in Gurren Lagann, Yayoi in Psycho-Pass, Rei Hasekura in Maria Watches Over Us, and Hinagiku in Hayate the Combat Butler.

Yui (Risa Taneda)

  Risa Taneda is undoubtedly best known for her roles as Erina Nakiri in Food Wars and Kaori Miyazono in Your Lie in April. But to me, she will always be Saki from Shin Sekai Yori, where she delivered an excellent performance spanning many ages, and performed the first ending song too. Taneda’s other significant roles include Rize in Is the Order a Rabbit?, Mirai in Beyond the Boundary, Yukina in Strike the Blood, Ai Mizuno in Zombie Land Saga, Xenovia in High School DxD, and Yukari in YUYUSHIKI.

Labyrista (Miyuki Sawashiro)

    Miyuki Sawashiro is one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. She first came to prominence as the voice of Puchiko in Di Gi Charat; she famously reprised the role in the English dub of Leave it to Piyoko, becoming the first anime voice actor to voice the same character in both sub and dub. A few of Sawashiro’s other major roles include Kurapika in Hunter x Hunter, Celty Sturluson in Durarara, Bishamon in Noragami, Fujiko Mine in recent installments of Lupin the Third, and Kanbaru in the Monogatari series.

Aoi (Kana Hanazawa)

    Kana Hanazawa needs no introduction, being one of the most popular voice actors of our times. She rose to popularity as Nadeko in Bakemonogatari and its sequels, performing the iconic opening song “Renai Circulation.” Some of her other anime roles include Akane from Psycho-Pass, Mayuri from Steins;Gate, Angel from Angel Beats, Kosaki Onodera from Nisekoi, Hinata Kawamoto from March Comes in Like a Lion, Kuroneko from Oreimo, and Ichika from The Quintessential Quintuplets.  

Who is your favorite Princess Connect voice actor? Let us know in the comments!

  By: Manas B. Sharma

[buzzdixonwriter]

Hoo U?

A spirited discussion is raging on Facebook now, the good kind of spirited discussion, an enthusiastic exchange of ideas and ideals, not a snark fest.

The top is a deceptively simple one:  Who are the characters various actors played?

Let me clarify:   It began as a trivia challenge to name actors who have won Oscars for playing the same character.

And there in lays the debate.

How exactly are we defining a character.

This all sounds trivial, and to be frank this part of the discussion is, but it’s gonna get deep by the end.  

Trust me.

So here’s the kickoff:

Marlon Brando won a Best Male Performance Oscar for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather; Robert DeNiro won a Best Male Supporting Performance Oscar for playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather II

Heath Ledger won a Best Male Supporting Performance Oscar for playing the Joker in The Dark Knight; Joaquin Phoenix won a Best Male Performance Oscar for playing the Joker in Joker.

(Trivia bonus: Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart received Oscar nominations for playing the same character at different stages of her life in Titanic, and Winslet and Judi Dench were both nominated for playing the same character at different stages in Iris as well; plus Peter O’Toole was nominated twice for playing Henry II in Beckett and The Lion In Winter which technically counts as a sequel…)

The Facebook debate is over whether Ledger and Phoenix were actually playing the same character.

Now in the case of the former, The Godfather II is a continuation of the same story in The Godfather by the same creative team with much of the original cast reprising their roles, the Oscars going to two actors who played the same character at different stages of their life (BTW, where's the love for Oreste Baldini, who played Vito as a young boy?).

The two films were re-edited and combined with The Godfather III to make a nine-hour and 43-minute miniseries The Godfather Trilogy.

It is clear the creators’ intent from the beginning was for audiences to accept Baldini / DeNiro / Brando as the same person at various stages of his life.

The Ledger Joker and the Phoenix Joker cannot possibly be the same character for a wide variety of internal continuity issues separating the two films.  The creators of Joker went out of their way to state their version of the character was not The Dark Knight version.

Unlike The Godfather movies, you can’t link up the various live action Batman / Suicide Squad / Joker stories into a single coherent narrative (especially since you have to drag in the live action Supeman and Wonder Woman movies and TV shows as well).

. . .

Can different actors play their version of the same character in otherwise unlinked productions?

Of course they can.

Stage plays do it all the time.

If you start with the same exact text, then clearly any number of actors can play Hamlet or MacBeth or Willy Loman.

The problems arise when one goes afield of the text.

. . . 

In 1932 Constance Bennett made a movie called What Price Hollywood? that did okay but really didn’t set the world on fire.

In 1937 Janet Gaynor remade that film as A Star Is Born, the story changed to give it a tragic yet uplifting conclusion; her version was a big hit and Gaynor received an Oscar nomination.

In 1954 Judy Garland remade A Star is Born as a musical and that proved a big hit, and Garland received an Oscar nomination.

In 1976 Barbara Streisand took a swing at the material with a country-western version of A Star Is Born and while she got an Oscar nomination, audiences were unreceptive.

In 2018 Lady Gaga remade A Star Is Born and received both an Oscar nomination for her role and an Oscar win for her song.

Question: Are they all playing the same character?  Each played a character that started their film with a different name than the other versions, but the Gaynor / Garland / Streisand / Gaga versions all end with the central character proudly proclaiming they are “Mrs. Norman Maine.”

Same character?

. . .

There’s no argument that William Gillette, Basil Rathbone, and Benedict Cumberbatch all played Sherlock Holmes, even when their productions took certain liberties with the stories.

But Sherlock Holmes is not an idiot, and Michael Caine played Holmes as an idiot in Without A Clue.

Was he playing the same character as Gillette / Rathbone / Cumberbatch?

(Ironically Peter Cook played a very recognizable and wholly credible Holmes in his farcical send up of The Hound Of The Baskervilles with Dudley Moore.)

Did George C. Scott play Holmes in They Might Be Giants?  Almost everybody else in the story thinks he’s a New York banker who’s suffered a nervous breakdown and only thinks he’s Holmes, but Scott believes he is Holmes 100% and throughout the film other people he encounters accept him as Holmes at face values.

He functions as Holmes throughout.

And in the end, the audience is left in a weird place, not really knowing what his fate may be, not absolutely sure if he is a bonkers banker but maybe…somehow…he is Sherlock Holmes…

. . . 

Did John Cassavettes in Tempest and Walter Pidgeon in Forbidden Planet play the same character?  Were either of those roles Shakespeare’s Prospero?

Did Christopher Lee play the same character in Horror Of Dracula and its sequels, in Count Dracula, and in In Search Of Dracula?   (The producers of Count Dracula sure went to great pains to explain their version was a different and more accurate version than the Hammer version of the character, and In Search Of Dracula cast Lee as Vlad Tepes who was the real life historical figure Bram Stoker based his novel on.)

For that matter, is Count Orlok in Nosferatu:  A Symphony Of Terror actually Dracula?  A European court awarding lawsuit damages to Bram Stoker's widow sure thought so.

Along similar lines, was Bela Lugosi playing Dracula in Columbia's Return Of The Vampire? Universal's lawyers sure thought so.

Did Jim Caviezel in Passion Of The Christ, Max von Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, and Michael Rennie in The Day The Earth Stood Still all play the same character?

Did Toshiro Mifune, Clint Eastwood, and Bruce Willis all play the Continental Op?

Did Clint Eastwood play the same character in all three Dollar films?

Did Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, and Will Smith all play the same character?

Did Leonardo DiCaprio play the same character Steve McQueen played in The Great Escape (even if just for one brief scene) or did he play a character who played a character Steve McQueen played in The Great Escape?

Ooh, here's a good one!

Lon Chaney Jr starts Ghost Of Frankenstein playing the same monster Boris Karloff played in the original Frankenstein / Bride Of Frankenstein / Son Of Frankenstein trilogy, but by the end gets Ygor's brain (Bela Lugosi) transplanted into his body and speaks / thinks / acts briefly as Ygor in Frankie’s body.

However, Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman while maintaining continuity with all four previous films cast Lugosi as the monster (because Chaney had to play the Wolfman, duh) without dialog.  Glenn Strange then assumed the role again in continuity with all previous films for House Of Frankenstein, House Of Dracula, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, occasionally speaking briefly in the role.

Who was Strange playing in his films?  The original Karloff monster or Ygor in Frankie's bod?  Are those two distinct characters?

. . .

All the above is fun trivia to debate, but it links to a much more serious question:  Who are you?

That’s not a trivial matter.  What constitutes out identity?  What makes us who we are?

I lost my father years ago to Alzheimer’s.  As my brother Robert observed, the only member of a family not affected by an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is the person suffering from it themselves.

I would talk to my father on the phone, and he was always pleasant and cheery, but about three years before he died I realized he had no idea who I was, I was just some voice on the other end of the line that mom wanted him to talk to.

My father was by nature and easy going kinda guy, and that certainly made his last few years easier for my mother and brother Rikk to cope with, but one night when I was visiting, trying to get their affairs straightened out so he could enter a nursing home, he got irritated with my mother as she was trying to help him and raised his hand as if to slap hers away.

My father never raised his hand against my mother.  

Ever.

He taught me and my brothers that was something no real man ever did.

He might sound gruff on occasion but he never raised a finger, much less truck our mother.

The fact he did so in the throes of Alzheimer’s indicated that whoever he once was, he wasn’t that person anymore.

We got him into a nursing home and he lasted a little less than a year there, his mind and his memory and his personality deteriorating rapidly.

Who was he at the end?

I didn’t go to his funeral.

What was the point?

The father I knew and loved had departed long before they buried his shell.

My grandmother, on the other hand, remained her cranky, irascible self until a week and a half before she died, finding the wit to crack one last memorable joke before her body began shutting down.

. . .

The question of identity is related to consciousness, and these are referred to as “the hard question” by physicians and physicists and philosophers alike.

What makes us “us”?

How do we know who we are?

What constitutes identity?

There are no easy, pat answers.

We have textbook definitions that dance around the issue of identity and consciousness, providing enough of a foundation for us to recognize what it is we’re discussing, but no one has yet come up with a clear, concise explanation of what either phenomenon is.

It’s like saying “apples are a red fruit.”

Okay, we know what you’re talking about, but we also know that description falls far, far short of what an apple actually is.

That’s why trivial discussion like whether or not Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix are playing the same character is a lot more important than it seems.

(BTW, they aren’t. Phoenix won his Oscar for his version of the Rupert Pupkin character in a violent remake of The King Of Comedy.)

    © Buzz Dixon 

[nitrateglow]

How about some love for Kurosawa’s High and Low?

High and Low isn’t among Kurosawa’s most famous movies, but it is absolutely one of his finest and a major favorite of mine, a thriller and police procedural that rivals anything Hitchcock ever did.

The protagonist is Kingo Gondo (played by Toshiro Mifune in a mostly understated performance of repressed rage and fear), a shoe executive who has had to claw his way to the top due to having been born in lowly circumstances-- no small feat in Japanese society. He gets targeted by a kidnapper who grabs his son and threatens to kill the boy unless he is paid 30 million yen. However, it turns out the kidnapper grabbed the son of Gondo’s chauffeur instead, but he still insists Gondo pay.

Gondo makes it clear that if he pays, he will be ruined: 30 million yen is the sum of his fortune, the other executives hate him and want any excuse to throw him out of the company, and he put his mansion and other belongings up for collateral in buying up shares in the company. Not only that, but his innocent wife and son will also be brought down socially as well. However, if he does not pay, not only will the public despise him and potentially boycott his shoes, but he will also have earned the contempt of his loved ones. Even more, he would never be able to forgive himself. It’s all a true catch-22.

The first half of the movie deals with this dilemma and it truly is suspenseful. Gondo isn’t just some generic jerk businessman: he has integrity, both in wanting to make shoes without cutting corners and in treating his workers fairly. However, he is also proud of his hard-earned social position and resents being humiliated. Once he makes his decision, we get to the second half of the story, where the police-- who have come to love and respect Gondo-- race against time to find the kidnapper and restore the money before Gondo’s property is completely auctioned and he loses all standing in the company.

I actually prefer the film’s Japanese title to the English High and Low-- the original title is Heaven and Hell, and it perfectly relates to both Gondo’s moral dilemma and the severe class divide depicted in the movie. Gondo literally must choose between heaven and hell when considering the ransomer’s demands (I kept thinking of the line from Mark’s gospel, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul?”).

In the second half, “heaven and hell” relates to the divide between the rich and the poor rather than a moral choice. After spending so much time in the spacious luxury of Gondo’s home, it is a shock to be taken to the ramshackle home of the kidnapper, the garbage dumps, overcrowded nightclubs packed with sweaty patrons, and the hangouts of heroin addicts. So many of these scenes-- which I could easily see being made cheesy and preachy in a lesser movie-- are haunting, lowkey like something out of The Inferno.

And then there’s Tsutomo Yamazaki who is just so chilling as the kidnapper. What makes him so creepy is how unassuming and ordinary he appears despite his calculating intelligence and amoral ruthlessness. His final confrontation with Gondo is among the best acting I have ever seen, where he goes from cold, seething hatred for this man to a total emotional breakdown. I don’t even want to spoil it, just in case you haven’t seen this incredible movie.

I cannot even properly express how much I adore this movie. It takes what could have been a routine thriller plot and naturally packs it with these heavy themes while still retaining high entertainment value. And I think that’s why people still love and revere Kurosawa after all this time. His films say so much about the human condition and challenge our assumptions about society and life itself, all without being difficult to watch.

Absolutely see this one!

[whatsthecraicwithvideogames]

My Definitive Ranking Of All 21 Confidants in Persona 5 (yep it’s a list you just gotta deal)

Persona 5 has some of the best characters in any game I've ever played. Over the 100 hours spent in the game, a lot of these characters are significantly fleshed out and you feel a genuine bond with them. Some not so much. So, because the world needed it so much, here is my official 100% accurate ranking of all those characters. No debate needed. This is the only ranking you will ever need. Enjoy.

21 Yuuki Mishima

Mishima seems to think that just because he figured out that you were a Phantom Thief that he is entitled a spot in your friend group.No. GET YOUR OWN FRIENDS MISHIMA. There are plenty of characters less interesting than Mishima, but none that annoyed me more. It may be completely unjustified, but I just need him out of my life. More specifically, I need him out of my hotel room in Hawaii. Go home, Mishima. No one wants you here.

20 Toranosuke Yoshida

The main issue that afflicts the majority of the people at the bottom of the list is dullness and being underdeveloped. Yoshida happens to be the former. Maybe it's just because I'm young and ignorant, but when I'm trying to save the world from its inevitable ruin, I'm not really all that interested in a disgraced politician. Call me simple minded.

19 Chihaya Mifune

Now we come to the underdeveloped. Although it must be said that Chihaya could have had an amazing storyline that I just didn't see, as her character was so one note and uninteresting that I became equally uninterested in what was going on with her and I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. So I apologize if I've missed an amazing character, but she should have made a better impression sooner.

18 Shinya Oda

I have little feelings towards Shinya. He's a little higher on the list due to his storyline being a bit sympathetic but there isn't really much to his character other than the fact that he's a kid who's good at a video game. I was invested in making sure that he got fed, but that's about as far as it goes.

17 Munehisa Iwai

I am currently holding a bit of a grudge against Iwai at the minute, as he was the only confidant I didn't manage to max out on my new game plus run, basically meaning I wasted about an extra 70 hours BUT HEY. That's not his fault. He also suffers from side character dullness, but he gets bumped up the list a bit because we had a lot of weird dates together that I'll never forget. What other game allows you to go to the planetarium and an all you can eat buffet with a yakuza member? In Persona 5, even the boring characters have something to offer. Some more than others.

16 Igor

There isn't really much to say about Igor to be honest. Of all the people on this list, he’s the one you have the least opportunity to get to know, but there's just something about him. Maybe it's his nose? Or perhaps the eyebrows? Either way, I like his style and he managed to crawl up a few spaces.

15 Haru Okumura

We arrive at another character who took a little while to grow on me. Originally I thought she was just as boring as Makoto, but at least Haru has some semblance of a personality. She's awfully sweet and her storyline is very sympathetic. She struggles under the weight of her responsibility to run a company, and is conflicted by her arranged marriage to a man she has no interest in. I felt genuinely invested in making sure she was okay and safe, even if her metaverse outfit is a bit dumb. Nobody's perfect.

14 Ichiko Ohya

If you're not familiar with Ohya, just imagine a really incompetent Jessica Jones and you're pretty much there. Meaning, she's drunk all the time. She drinks away the guilt she harbours from losing her best friend on the job, but she still remains a fierce journalist who doesn't crack under pressure and is determined to find out the truth. She just happens to smell like gin while she's doing it.

13 Sae Niijima

Sae is cool in the most normal way that you'll find in Persona 5. She's a prosecutor, working against against all odds to become the top in her field. She may have been working slightly against us in the beginning, but she was a formidable foe; working with an open mind and a level head, she eventually began to believe our stories about our time with the Phantom Thieves. Sae is rad without needing a cool outfit (@Makoto) and we should all be more like her.

12 Makoto Niijima

I'm not even going to apologise. Makoto just barely made it above her much more impressive sister, and the only reason she did is because her whole deal in the metaverse is pretty badass. However, and let me say this loud for you Makoto, just because your persona is a motorcycle, DOES. NOT. MAKE. YOU. THE BOSS. Once she joins your team, every plan comes from her, even though I am the leader of the Phantom Thieves. I have tried really quite hard to understand why everybody loves Makoto so much. I even romanced her on my second playthrough so I could get a different perspective on her. It helped nothing. I really tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but anywhere outside of the metaverse, she is dull and boring. Number 1 Waifu she is not, I'm afraid.

11 Hifumi Togo

Before Futaba came along, I was all set to romance Hifumi. To be fair I felt she was the best of a bad bunch, but let that not detract from her good qualities. She's a shogi master (or at least she thinks she is), and yet she still struggles with something that a lot of us can identify with: she is desperately trying to live up to her mother's unachievable high expectations. All Hifumi wants is to play shogi, and when she plays shogi, she plays shogi. She's a bit crazy but we love her anyway, and there's no one else I’d rather play shogi in a church with. Now just to figure out what shogi actually is…

10 Morgana

What would a JRPG be without a resident weird humanoid animal thing? Mediocre, that's what. Morgana is an integral part to the whole structure of the game, in more ways than one. Without him, our character would have no idea about how anything works in the Metaverse. Yes, he can be literally the most irritating presence on the planet whenever I'm trying to go out and Morgana is telling me to go to bed (YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME MORGANA), but deep down I know he's doing it out of love. Sometimes I wish Morgana loved me a little less but hey, you can't pick your family.

9 Goro Akechi

Okay, look. I know what you're thinking. Akechi is a little bit problematic. I know this. But he's just so adorable before all that! That's pretty much that only reason I have for having him so far up the list. His little face in his character profile is just so cute that you can't help but love him. Also the way he yells ‘PERSONAAAAAAGHHHH’ is badass and I can't hear it enough times. I forgive the Ace Detective of all crimes he has committed.

8 Futaba Sakura

A couple of months ago, Futaba would most likely have topped my list. She was the first girl I romanced in Persona 5. I had spent the whole game waiting for someone to come along and sweep me off my (digital) feet. It was beginning to look like I was going to have to settle with Hifumi- and then Futaba came along. She was a hacker and a gamer: my perfect waifu. Her romancing scenes are very sweet and I remained enamoured with her throughout my whole playthrough. After playing new game plus that changed. I went in with the intention of romancing someone different, and boy is Futaba different without those rose tinted glasses on. Her inability to do anything on her own is, while understandable, it's frustrating at best. She's still pretty high on the list though, as I'll never forget our time together, and also she's saved me countless times during combat that she will forever be elevated to God tier in the Metaverse. I owe her a debt I can never repay.

7 Tae Takemi

I won't lie to you. A lot of Takemi’s charm and appeal lies in her character design. The idea of a cool, punk rock doctor who supplies us with our own extreme healing products is great. Even better is that she's got the attitude to match. Confident in her skills but still dating enough to go rogue and have you be her guinea pig for new medicines she's developing, Takemi is a doctor you would want as a friend, but DEFINITELY not treating you. Unless you enjoy drinking mysterious liquids and passing out for hours on end. In which case be my guest.

6 Sadayo Kawakami

Ah, Kawakami. She sure does have it rough. Teacher by day, maid by night, she's a very sympathetic character, although she may not start out that way. At first glance she just seems like your typical extremely incompetent teacher- which she is. However the deeper into her storyline you go, the more you start to understand why she is the way she is. She ends up being quite a sweet person, not to mention her skills enable you to have more of the most important resource in Persona 5: time. Coincidentally, that's the one thing it takes for her to grow on you. Just give her a couple of days, and you'll learn to love her for who she is. A hot mess.

5 Sojiro Sakura

I don't think it’s an overstatement to say that the entire plot of the game would not have happened if not for Sojiro. For some unexplained reason, he agrees take in our main character who has just been put on parole, and it's that act that eventually brings our whole crew together. Even when he discovers that he has a phantom thief right under his roof, he sticks by you and even lets you hold meetings right there in his café. He goes from standoffish jerk to ‘dad we never had’ in a beautiful transformation that is one of the best progressions of a relationship in the game. If it wasn’t for his curious combination of coffee and curry for breakfast every morning, there's no way we could have completed our rehabilitation and saved the world from ruin. Sojiro literally saved the entire world (don't question it he totally did).

4 Ann Takamaki

Of all the characters on this list, Ann is the one that surprised me the most. She's pretty, blonde and a model. In video games, TV, movies; these things tend to be a placeholder for a personality, so really I expected nothing more from Ann: and boy did she prove me wrong. She is kind, loyal and is extremely strong willed. She suffered through sexual harassment at the hands of her teacher, her best friend's attempted suicide, and the her career as a model being sabotaged by a spiteful competitor. Through it all, however, she remains a positive force on the team and one of your characters closest friends from beginning to end. We all deserve someone like Ann in our lives.

3 Yusuke Kitagawa

Yusuke is another character that I love purely because every conversation with him is golden, particularly when leveling up your relationship with him. Throughout his journey to find himself as an artist, I joined him at an art exhibit, a romantic boat ride on a lake, and I posed as our Lord and Savior himself Jesus Christ on the crucifix as a way to inspire the creativity within Yusuke. Some may say that Yusuke’s best quality is his voice, but those people simply can't appreciate what he brings to the table and I simply have no time for them. He is a rare flower and I will defend him at every given opportunity.

2 Caroline and Justine (The Wardens)

Before starting my new game plus playthrough, these girls wouldn't have even been on this list, because I had no idea that they were even confidants until my second time around. The way you level up your confidant ranking with them is by fusing personas with a certain ability, per their request. The only thing I dislike about that is that you don't get to spend as much time with them as I'd like. They are both as entertaining as they are enigmatic, and though it may seem strange to have them so high up, everytime I brought them a new persona, they stole a little bit more of my heart. By force. They demanded I give it to them. But it still counts all the same.

1 Ryuji Sakamoto

I don't care what anyone says, this game would not be half as interesting or funny without Ryuji in it. There are a lot of people who would probably put Ryuji last on this list, due to his loud nature and penchant for yelling in public about how you and all your friends are the Phantom Thieves. But that's all part of his charm! Ryuji owes a lot of his likeability to his voice actor, Max Mittelman, as he somehow manages to be comically over the top while still remaining believable for his character. There are multiple times during the game where you'll have to pick who to hang out with at certain story moments, with the intention really being that you hang out with the girl you're romancing, but every single time I chose Ryuji. Every situation with him is comedy gold. Ryuji will forever be my number 1, and nobody will ever change my mind on that.

[aion-rsa]

Belushi Review: Showtime’s Look at John Belushi Is Almost Definitive

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The world got to know John Belushi’s eyebrows before we got to know the man. They projected his innermost confusion, telegraphed his thought processes, and misdirected his most sincere intentions. Showtime’s heartfelt and intimate documentary, Belushi, opens with clips from the comic icon’s screen test for Saturday Night Live. Armed with just his face, he lets those eyebrows steal the scene. They cajole, caress, and careen across the bottom of his brow, culminating in a series of aerobic stretches with a gymnast’s flair. Belushi didn’t have to crack a joke, he barely had to say a word, and yet showed a world of possibilities within a few inches of cranial space. Belushi really was a lot like his decathlon character in the Little Chocolate Donuts skit. All he needed was some sugar to keep him going. The documentary shows Belushi really was born that way, and didn’t need the extra sweetening.

Too bad he couldn’t keep it up. But we know this from the beginning. The first real scene takes place at the height of Belushi’s fame and adulation. He stole the movie he was just in, Animal House, which was the most successful comedy film of all time at the time. He was on the number one TV show in America. His record The Blues Brothers’ Briefcase of Blues, not even a comedy album, but a labor of love with musician friends he respected and adored, was at the top of the charts, with hit singles doing the same. Director R.J. Cutler (The War Room, The September Issue, Listen to Me Marlon) immediately declares this documentary isn’t about one of America’s favorite performers, it is about the cannibalistic hungers of fame.

“John always had appetites that were completely out of control, for everything, but I didn’t start to worry about him until he was at the Universal Amphitheatre, playing for 7,000 people,” Harold Ramis, who had known Belushi since their improvisational comedy beginnings, says over the soundtrack and applause. “I looked at John on the stage and I thought, ‘He’s on the most popular comedy show of our generation, he was in the most successful comedy film ever, and now he’s onstage fronting an amazing band.’ My first thought was, ‘How great for him.’ My second thought was, ‘Knowing his appetites, I don’t think he’ll survive this.’”

With that, Ramis throws a dark shadow over the rest of the film. Every success the documentary shows from here on has a cloud of doom hanging over it. Belushi was a wild man, bouncing around on the very edge of the most visible stage, both higher than anyone possibly imagined. SNL made overnight stars out of most of its cast. Chevy Chase was plucked out early because, well, he was Chevy Chase and they weren’t. But while former drummer Chase went on to be a matinee draw, Belushi became a rock star.

Belushi’s life has been told before. Watergate journalist Bob Woodward wrote the tawdry 1984 book Wired, which was adapted into a feature film in 1989. The documentary makes ample use of audio clips from Tanner Colby’s 2012 oral history Belushi: A Biography. Belushi’s wife Judith interviewed many of his friends and castmates, like Ramis, Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Lorne Michaels, Carrie Fisher, Ivan Reitman, Penny Marshall, and John’s brother Jim Belushi. Judy conducted the interviews in the first few years after Belushi’s death. This gives Belushi an immediacy, but also makes the stories feel older. None of the other interviews are shown as talking heads, except archival footage of Belushi himself.

While the guest voices condense the story, and breathe an even-handed life into the material, Belushi works best when it lets Belushi tell his own version. Some of the most revealing insights come from a series of letters written to Judy, who had been with him ever since Wheaton Community High School. The letters, which open “Dear Jutes,” begin when Belushi is still in an Indiana summer stock company, smoking pot and listening to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, which he writes makes him think of her whenever he hears it, “Especially ‘With a Little Help From My Friends.’” His rendition of Joe Cocker’s adaptation of the song is a late highlight, and Belushi’s letters are interpreted very effectively by Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader.

The letters illuminate Belushi’s passions while humanizing the larger-than-life performer. Home movie footage succeeds in showing him trying to find an elusive normalcy in real life. The letters offset the seemingly effortless rise of the comedian with the inner turmoil that fed it. Belushi comes off as obsessed with success but terrified of fame. A late letter reveals Belushi was afraid he reached a point of no return. Some of the letters are funny, others insecure, still others come off as despondent.

One of the most unexpected revelations about Belushi is how he felt like an outsider growing up, and was embarrassed by his Albanian immigrant background. One wouldn’t think Belushi might be embarrassed by anything. “We all wanted to be American,” his brother Jim Belushi explains. John, who was expected to work in his father’s restaurant, instead put it to work for him, inspiring his Pete Dionasopoulos of the Olympia Café character in the “Cheeseburger, cheeseburger” sketches.

Much of Belushi’s story is brought to life by the animated sequences from Robert Valley. These are particularly effective when showing Belushi during his high school years drumming with a band called the Ravens, and illustrating his time with the improv group he founded, The West Compass Players, which led to his joining Chicago’s Second City troupe. His rise is spectacularly fun to hear, and the animation makes up for lost footage.

The film also gets into his many contradictions. Belushi is drawn losing himself in the albums of comics like Jonathan Winters and Bob Newhart. But when he is asked, during his Second City period, his opinion on Lou Costello, Belushi says “Nope, don’t like him.” John wanted to create something new. The film also shows how much spontaneity played into Belushi’s comedy. He’d only seen the samurai movie with Toshiro Mifune on TV the night before he auditioned for Saturday Night Live.

Belushi was flown from Chicago to New York to officiate over Lemmings, National Lampoon’s Off-Broadway spoof of Woodstock. He stole the show with his impersonation of Joe Cocker. Lorne Michaels saw Saturday Night Live as a show which would be an “upheaval” for network television. Belushi said he hated television during his interview, but told Michaels he would deign to appear on the show. He’d already auditioned for a rival series called “Saturday Night,” which was going to be headlined by sports announcer Howard Cosell.

The documentary expertly weaves the double-edged sword of celebrity. Belushi chafed at being recognized on the street as “that Bee guy” from their bumble-bee sketches, but his performances, many of them exercises in extreme physical comedy, struck a nerve with audiences. Belushi lets clips strike at the audience to back it up. Michaels compares Belushi to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden from The Honeymooners, because he brought a blue-collar vibe. On SNL, Belushi is remembered as being very competitive, distracted by the success of Chevy Chase, and dismissive of the women writers and performers. Once Chase left, Michaels says “the thing that John most hoped for, that he would be the alpha male, had now happened.”

The documentary is at its most exciting when it shows clips. From the early Lemmings stage show, through Saturday Night Live, Belushi highlights the anarchy Belushi brought to the stage. It could easily slip into be a “best of” clip show, featuring his memorable characters Jake Blues and the Samurai, or his ruthless spoof of Elizabeth Taylor choking on a chicken bone, giving herself the Heimlich maneuver and returning to the chicken. But instead informs Belushi’s motivations. Cutler consistently finds perfect clips to illustrate how Belushi’s individuality drove him to seemingly unimaginable heights. The onscreen examples justify the star quality which put him on the cover of Newsweek and Rolling Stone. We get the sense of how Belushi helped change American culture and comedy, in the same league as Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin, and George Carlin. But while scaling the dizzying heights, the movie never loses its sense of doom.

Belushi’s spiral into addiction is covered at length. In the second season of SNL, Belushi got injured doing a pratfall and was prescribed painkillers. When the prescription ran out, he turned to the street for hard drugs. Later in his career, Belushi would hire President Nixon’s personal bodyguard to keep him away from bad influences, but on his rise up, many of his colleagues cut him a lot of slack. “He was testing all his boundaries at that point,” The Blues Brothers director John Landis explains, before excusing Belushi: “I don’t think we lost more than four or five days of shooting because of the drugs.”

Belushi got clean for a year, living Martha’s Vineyard. Carrie Fisher, however, says in an interview that by skipping rehab, Belushi never dealt with sobriety’s most challenging aspects: day to day life can be boring, and the comic star didn’t have the coping mechanism to deal with feelings the drugs were covering up. Cutler’s documentary is moving, offering a look into the soul of the man who embodied the “animal” found in every college fraternity, Bluto in Animal House. The documentary deftly explores Belushi’s attempts to make the beast noble, taking his acting seriously in smaller films like Old Boyfriends, Continental Divide, and trying to break out of the audience’s preconceptions with his last film Neighbors.

Cutler finds Belushi, the performer, but doesn’t quite catch John as a person as Belushi incrementally shifts its focus from his art to his drug binges. Belushi can’t fully celebrate Belushi, because everyone watching knows the ending. In March of 1982, Belushi sequestered himself at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles in order to finish “Noble Rot,” a screenplay he was writing with Don Novello. Here the film very succinctly and poignantly captures the love people felt for the man, Belushi. Aykroyd, who said he fell in love with Belushi the moment they met, still bears deep wounds.

“He was sad and defeated,” Aykroyd remembers about his last conversation. “I thought I’ll finish this page, this paragraph and get out there. I didn’t get to him in time. I carry that with me forever.” Belushi’s long-time blues and soul brother thought he had a solution. “I told him I was writing something great for us,” we hear Aykroyd say in the film. “I was writing Ghostbusters.” While the documentary gives this revelation a sheen of hopeful might-have-beens, it really only underscores how that would be a mistake assumption. Everything about the documentary says a successful film might only have slowed the same inevitable ending.

For all the archival footage found in Belushi, one particular short film broadcast on Saturday Night Live is sadly not featured, except for a few stills in one of the quicker montages. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” shows John, as an old man, walking through a cemetery and reminiscing about his old friends on SNL. They’re all dead in the film, Belushi is the last survivor. Why? Because he is a dancer. This may have been how he saw himself, and as his audience most wanted to see him. But for all the missed promise it may have subverted, the skit fits with Belushi’s larger picture. John Belushi is dancing through a graveyard, happily. The film is a wake, of sorts. But the dance is how Belushi ultimately moved through life, with a dancer’s grace which defied the body held down by strong appetites. Belushi would have been a more satisfying film if it took smaller bites.

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Belushi airs Sunday, Nov. 22, at 9 p.m., on Showtime.

The post Belushi Review: Showtime’s Look at John Belushi Is Almost Definitive appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[danrevill]

The Matrix Revisited

A couple of weekends ago I introduced my nephew, to THE MATRIX. We proceeded to watch that film and its sequel THE MATRIX RELOADED over the course of one evening. The next morning he said he was 'Matrixed out', so it wasn't until today that I had time to watch THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. I have some thoughts to share on my revisit to the films, specifically the sequels.

I've seen THE MATRIX quite a few times over the course of my life. It's undoubtedly a classic of sci-fi and American film in general. It stole the thunder from STAR WARS in 1999 and that’s no easy task. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving are perfectly cast and it’s a tight, very focused film that never diminishes on repeat viewings. Having said that, for whatever reason, I haven't watched its sequels nearly as much - maybe two or three times each (including this year) (and yes, there’s a reason, which I’ll get to). 

RELOADED is pretty uneven in terms of pacing. The set pieces are great and that highway chase scene is fantastic. I had not remembered some of it but what I did remember was indeed memorable for the right reasons (except the Burly Brawl, which is way too cartoonish for its own good). Pretty much once our heroes are introduced to The Merovingian in the last half of RELOADED, it’s a perfect film. Even the scene with The Architect isn’t terrible - while exposition heavy, it’s actually telling you everything you need to know about how to watch the rest of the series. Maybe that’s part of the issue with RELOADED’s pacing - it’s trying to train the audience on how to watch the last third of the trilogy. I think many people probably remember it the best but often don’t watch past it. 

REVOLUTIONS is a film that I’d forgot for the most part. I remembered the broad strokes but a lot of the details escaped me. I could say that it was almost a brand new experience for me. One of the reasons I didn’t visit the sequels as much was because I’d fallen prey to the Internet’s somewhat vocal dissatisfaction with RELOADED and REVOLUTIONS. I recall liking them in theatres but then the hype died down and life went on.

I’m going to say that REVOLUTIONS is the better of the sequel films. While neither can match up to the first film (it’s a hard act to follow), REVOLUTIONS actually the more evenly paced of the two. It seems that the Wachowskis knew the end game better than they knew the middle - they needed the middle to get there, but I feel that REVOLUTIONS was really where their love lay in crafting the sequels.

I love the whole search for Neo at the beginning of the film with Morpheus and Trinity accompanying Seraph (Colin Chou) to the Merovingian’s club (also, how perfect is Lambert Wilson in that particular role?). I love the whole assault on Zion by the machines. It’s a fantastic set piece that goes on a lot longer than I expected it to. Captain Mifune’s last stand against the sentinel’s is great. I love how the sentinels move like a school of fish...and then Neo vs Bane was pretty great...as was the final showdown between Neo and Agent Smith (which I’d pretty much forgot all of). Like I said, a lot to love in the film.

It’s amazing that both films were released in the same calendar year. While one is exposition heavy, the other just soars from beginning to end. Maybe it wasn’t the ending that people wanted or expected, but that’s what makes the film series one that has somewhat become a hidden gem. Everyone knows THE MATRIX but I feel that many people, including myself, had brushed the sequels off as inferior. They’re not inferior as much as they’re different. They expand the mythos and world build in unexpected ways. Both are a tad too long but I’d give RELOADED 3.5/5 and REVOLUTIONS 4/5.

With the news that Warner Brothers is looking to relaunch the franchise, I hope that they don’t actually do a full reboot. The ending of REVOLUTIONS leaves enough room to continue on a do a soft reboot while not rehashing everything that has come before. The Architect and The Oracle have their nice little chat, and we know that Neo is out there, somewhere, in the real world. This film series is not one to shy away from leaning on religious themes, like rebirth. I hope they do continue but perhaps ‘The One’ is female this time out? One thing that I really do like about the series overall is that it is a very inclusive universe. The Wachowskis definitely have never been shy about casting whomever they thought best for the role. 

So really, this article should have just been called THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS revisited, but then again, would you have read it?

[petty-crush]

"Red Beard" -this is one of the few Kurosawa films I have not seen; surprise, surprise-this is a fantastic film that deserves to be called a masterpiece -it also one dives deep into two of my favorite themes; humanism and existentialism -one reason Kurosawa films are magnificent is his pacing and blocking. Consider the scene where four men are sitting next to each other (like the last supper); there is the iconoclast older doctor, the wants to do well but unaccomplished second doctor, the third doctor who is leaving feeling defeated, and the new arrival replacing him who is upset he was sent there +the departing doctor is happy but exhausted, while the new arrival complains loudly that he should not be there, while the other two listen. Because it is one master shot with no close ups, not only do our eyes have multiple visual stimulation, but we also see how each of the four men affect the other, noting character bonds very effectively -I love rain in films/on screens, and this may be the best rain I have ever seen. Certainly the wettest -I also enjoy Kurosawa's bit about a character having one recognizable and repeated motion. In this case the title red beard combing his beard to note thinking and regulating himself -Kurosawa handled black and white film stock in a way almost nobody else did. It's incredible -like every film with Toshiro Mifune, Akira takes his time to establish his character, but also gives him a presence that hangs over the entire film like a shadow. Even when not there, other characters are talking about Mifune's character or thinking how he would judge their actions + it's a brilliant structure because it allows us to anticipate and savior when we see Mifune and his character, but not overstuff us with him so we don't get sick of him and it allows room for the other characters to grow -there is an incredible scene where the new arrival assists the title red bead in a complicated surgery that is almost a work of body transformation. It is shot in such a way as to stimulate rapture and birth and death at the same time. It also contains nudity, a rare thing for Kurosawa, which adds its otherworldliness -this dovetails into the overall theme of this film- of characters ending of lessening the suffering of others. The new arrival puts a barrier between himself and the poor patients but it is gradually crumbled and destroyed the more time he gets to see the effect of his work on them. To make someone's pain go away even a little bit is a great and noble act. -like all of Kurosawa's characters, this is done with characters deeply knowledgable of human behavior teaching or transmitting information via object lesions and experience, not lectures or word bashes -this film has an incredible cast of characters: a beloved dying man who is hiding the secret of his wife who was married to another man, a 12 year old girl mentally introverted and shell shocked by a life of neglect and abuse, a young boy only 7 who steals for his starving family, a group of patients who bicker and push each other for better of out love but no way to to display it in a healthy way, and of course the ghost of red beard's prescience +even minor characters like the sloth emperor have a way of sticking in the brain -I don't know how Kurosawa has a title character study and an ensemble piece in the same film but he does it. I am in awe - the moment where the dying man tells his story and it opens on the entire group on the left on the screen (him on the right all alone) lit only by a lantern is haunting -similarly, the part where he talks about seeing his wife after thinking her dead, the shot going from him laying on his back, blanket up to his neck, to the wind chimes flying the breeze in mass like a dance is a splendid example of Kurosawa's editing-dynamic, flowing, and never predictable -Kurosawa has this way of taking well trodden genres and specific areas (in this case, the medical drama) and through specific character actions, simple but sharply effective visuals, and a pacing that is ever alive and makes us feel like we are seeing something for the first time. His stylish humanistic approach is breath-taking -the scene of the doctor beating up thugs to rescue the poor 12 year old girl is like some kind of art three stooges; slapstick painting +and of course being a doctor he chides himself for the broken bones and damage he has done. Hilarious -I will never forget the scene of the women screaming the dying young thief's name into the well in an attempt up save his life. It is a glowing moment of unabridged human compassion -this film never feels long for being three hours; this is because there are interesting human behaviors and characters at every turn who show up to put aside their selfishness and aid others, thereby diminishing both their suffering. -To call it a mere masterpiece does not do it justice, rather, like water, it is a repeated and necessary element that cleanses and empowers with each take. There is patience and gaining awareness to the film. It is a treasure to be experienced over and over again

[resonancerequiemarchived]

1-3 of those mun questions

Mun Meme | Accepting | @deafeningsound​

1. What makes you the most emotional about your muse?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA more like what doesn’t make me over emotion XD. But naw for reals, Soul is like the most minimalistic muse I’ve ever rped but there’s so much depth to him that I think is kind of left up in the air for everyone to interpret for themselves. I think because he’s so nonchalant and you only get these tiny little insights that he has this ability to connect with everyone. I mean in the anime when Kid asked him about Crona and Soul just laughed at it and said something like “There’s no use being upset over it, besides if I was I’d only be alienating Crona more and Crona doesn’t need that.” and then proceeds to jump up and actually teach Crona how to play basketball.

And then in the manga when Black*Star is hurt after the final fight with Mifune, Soul was the one pushing his ass back in bed, and Soul didn’t pull punches either when he told Black*Star to grow the fuck up so there’s that.

And I mean, as much as I love him fiercely protecting Maka, what I love more than that is he KNOWS he can’t fight without her. It’s not like he’s trying to be this knight in shining armor, he knows she’s the warrior and he’s the weapon, but he uses his own body to shield her while she’s going through her own internal battle and even when he’s getting his ass kicked he’s still trying to get her to see how strong and brave and capable she is. I guess this is my long winded way of saying I love it when he puts other’s needs before his own XD

2. What made you decide to write this muse?

Soul is my frickin’ type. He’s somewhat different but ultimately he fits the trope of muses that I tend to write. The sarcastic/cynical/arrogant cool guy who is actually a frickin’ puppy inside and would legit sacrifice his entire being for the people he cares about and is a ball of anxiety that rarely let’s people see it. Just 10/10 that’s my kinda muse. I love all of the characters of Soul Eater but that’s why I chose Soul, because I was confident I could write him. Added Bonus for Soul: There’s so much gray area, so many things that are just kinda lackadaisically in the manga and the anime that I also enjoy being able to craft his character fully within the design that’s laid out.

3. If you could change one event in your muse’s life (in their main or canon verse), what would you change?

That he didn’t fucking LIE to Maka in Envy. I know I just finished stating that I enjoy the fact he’s very minimal but omfg Soul. That would have been a really interesting thing to see. Soul actually voicing his insecurities, voicing his cool kid demeanor is kind of an act (sorta, he is pretty cool XD) Not saying I need/want a drawn out, Soul having a breakdown scene. But just an acknowledgement, out loud, that he has a lot of stuff going on in his head. I mean c’mon he’s told Maka once in battle her courage is what inspires him to be brave and fight his own demons. Is it too much to ask that their relationship evolve to where he actually tells her what those demons are?? (I use Maka as the example but seriously Kid too because Kid and Black*Star got some quality interrelationship balancing going on and Soul and Kid didn’t XD))

OKAY I GOT ANOTHER sorry XD I wish there was more Soul being around Crona too. Like the whole “Fear of touching people, even I get that one.” and Soul being the one Crona almost killed, and Soul understanding (to a certain extent because omfg Crona bby) I just think interactions between them would have been really interesting. I think he connected with Crona too and we never really see that and it would have been different from how Crona connected to Maka so the facets of Soul’s characterization and Crona’s characterization would have both benefited buuuuuuuuuuuut I digress.

gd I’m a wordy mess.