Sábado, 27 de Julio de 2002

If you haven't seen Cowboy Bebop yet, you're missing on the thinking person's anime (no irony intended). Today the Cartoon Network dedicates its complete Adult Swim block to six episodes of the show, back to back, so I heavily suggest watching. OK: 3, 2... Let's jam! 8:03:40 PM    comment []

Ticket Box The July 29, 2002 issue of The New Yorker contains the following capsule review of Reign of Fire in its "Goings on about Town" section: Fire-breathing dragons menace postapocalyptic society in the director Rob Bowman's fantasy-adventure romp. The film stars a buff-beyond-belief Matthew McConaughey and the hunky Christian Bale, who participate in some spectacular lizard-slaying stunts. The sets and costumes recall the "Road Warrior" series, and Bowman shamelessly encourages a scenery-chewing hysteria in his leads. Mesmerizing junk.—Bruce Diones Have to agree with that "mesmerizing junk" line. Personally, enjoyed this movie very much, specially after seeing Eight Legged Freaks the previous day. Though the comparison to the "Road Warrior" is too easy: those movies are shorthand for postapocalyptic film. Reign relies more on a medievalistic mindset, specially in its first half, from the moment the dragon rises from London's bowels until where the Americans arrive. Of course, the fact that this scenes are set in a castle has something to do with it. But it also rises from other details, like the falconer whose bird looks out for approaching dragons, the siege mentality that keeps everyone within the castle's walls while their farm lies outside, or that playful scene where Bale and Gerard Butler recreate the "Luke, I'm your father" scene from The Empire Strikes Back for the kids. On the other hand, the moment McConaughey appears with his roughnecks and his Sgt. Rock strut the film resembles an Eastern Europe war film, something where the fight would be set in Kosovo. And this being a film produced by a Disney subsidiary (Touchstone Pictures), couldn't help but be reminded of Disney Pictures' own Dragonslayer, specially since the word is used often in the dialogue. Here's an idea for the right-holders to that movie: release it to DVD with at least a director's commentary; if there's other archival material or enough budget for new interviews or a documentary,  throw 'em inside too. Into the way-back machine! 7:41:36 PM    comment []

Just for the sake of it, here's a mini-bio of this scribbler. Also linked on navigation links to the left, under the not-so-original moniker "Who are you?" 2:49:11 AM    comment []

Idiot Box This scribbler is the kind of freak that tunes in to Cartoon Network throughout the day (and ocassionaly switches to SciFi or Turner Classic Movies). Watched tonight the Network's newest show, Whatever Happeed to Robot Jones? Have to admit, was intrigued into watching by the advertisements: They simulated an arcade game from the 80s using blocky graphics and Atari 2600 sound FX. It looked a little bit like Mikie. Talk about a flashback... At the same time, was also painfully aware that one thing was the advertisements and another the show itself. Just like movie trailers these days, that give away all the cool stuff from crappy movies and leave none of the goods to be seen on the feature itself. Well, on to the show. These are the everyday adventures of a robot kid called Robot Jones. He goes to high-school with all the other kids, loves to play video games and has a crush on a girl. And, from the animation style and the whole gestalt of it, it's the Reagan era all over again. On tonight's show, everyone in school, adults included, gets bitten by the Rubik cube bug (the cube is called something else though, Cubik or Kubrik or something like that) and whoever can solve the puzzle the fastest will go to the national competition on the TV show That's Amazing! Little Robot's antagonists, who wear Devo-like hats, cheat their way into defeating him. No, didn't do a line of bad blow, this was all in the show. They even had a fantasy sequence where the completed cube grew a face and legs, for Pete's sake! Robot Jones is not without its charms, in my opinion, and yet it suffers from the same malaise as a lot of cartoons trying to appeal to adults: the jokes will fly over kids' heads. And aren't they the ones who should be watching these shows? 1:35:11 AM    comment []