Opinion: Millenium Actress

Well it's been like what feels like a whole week since I promised a review of this film. On the other hand I'm glad I took the time to watch it while wide awake because the whole thing goes by with a "blink and you'll miss it" style.

The tale is written by Satoshi Kon - director of the hit Perfect Blue. I had a certain resistance to watching this movie because his previous work was just so damn creepy - parts of which (to me anyway) didn't seem to make any sense. Either that, or Perfect Blue was just too trippy for my sensibilities. Millenium Actress however is fairly straight-forward in plot, yet maintains Mr. Satoshi's unique visual style blending the audience's third-party view with the cast's collective mind's eye.

The story's about a starstruck documentary-film-maker and his young camera-man who's tracked down a legendary actress for an interview. His secret motivation however was to return a single copper key he's held onto for most of his life... And it's this very key that was the center of the actress's personal obsession for many years long ago. She came by this key as a young girl living in the early 20th century - given to her by a political fugitive who promised that one day, when they would meet again, he's show her his paintings... So the young girl, through what seems to be happenstance discovers that she could travel abroad by becoming in actress.

The film follows her story while leaping in and out of the film-maker's imagination as he interjects himself (and his partner) into her memories. The movie's reality-bending perspective goes really weird when the actress reveals that most of the films she performed in were in actuality reflections of her own real-life chase for her mystery love. At this point, the film starts to blend together present-day reality (the interview at her private residence), the tale of her personal life (a rivalry with a senior actress, a relationship with her director, etc), and all the period-films she played in (everything from feudal Japan to science-fiction) and all the while, the same "cast" of people appear in different versions of themselves.

Nevermind the amazingly editted jumps from one reality to the next, but the movie was very thought-provoking too. Sometimes you just need to decide what you need to hold onto. And what needs to be let go...

I definitely have to give this film a thumbs-up.
[psst: I should mention by the way, this film is only available sub-titled in English and French as Dreamworks never dubbed it from its original Japanese form]

Meanwhile on "eBay West"

The day dragged on this afternoon and I was desperately trying to remain more or less busy... you know how it is. The place was dead and you know the drill... hit eBay and browse a little.

Placed a bid for Kill Bill on UMD. Not sure if I already mentioned this, but it's like the one movie I wouldn't mind having on UMD (since I've already seen it and a portable action-flick would be neat). And yet, as an odd stroke of coincidence, it's not available in Canada. Copies are all over eBay and local stores carrying the new UMD format never seem to have it around.

Anyway, found it today at a decent price with shipping so I bid what I felt was a fair price. I disagree with the pricing scheme on UMDs in general (some retail higher than others), but base prices are okay. Any higher and I feel like I ought to be watching it on my home-theatre than on a tiny 4.5-inch LCD.

We'll see if I win. The auction's out west so their idea of 9pm is actually several hours away...

Opinion: Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence

Well, I had time to sit down after work today to watch the rest of the film. I must say, although it's not the best movie in the world, it certain is one of the more thought-provoking anime I've watched.

General themes include a love lost, prejudiced to things that are just creeping us out, and mankind's obession with remaking ourselves (through robotics). Not too preachy (not much more than Appleseed).

Plot is about Batou - the big guy from the first movie. He's been feeling out of sorts ever since his partner Major Kusanagi left. He's now been assigned a new partner, Togosa, the detective without any cyborg enhancements... It's the classic investigative tale about a cop trying to follow a trail of malfunctioning murdering androids and all the while trying to avoid the typical cyber-punk snares like attmepted cyber-brain hacking, etc...

The film as a whole thus becomes a very surreal affair - you're never quite sure if what you're seeing is real, or the result of the hackers messing with Batou's brain. And the whole time, Togosa comes off as a complete technophobe, showing a distrust (and almost disgust) at any technology he encounters during this mission.

Presentation is typical of Mamoru Oshii. This director time and again has proven that he's a big fan of atmosphere and eye-candy. His trademark long-winded "scenery shot" is back just like it was in his Patlabor movies and the previous installment of Ghost in the Shell. Unfortunately, while it doesn't break the pace of the film (since the entire film is rather slow - even the fight scenes), it does make an already slow-moving show feel even slower.

That said, it's a mood film. You want to watch this when you're ready to sit and think for a while rather. Don't be putting this on when it's rainy out and you're feeling drowsy - it'll likely put you to sleep.

SIC23: Ken comes thru again!

Well, got an email from Ken at Toy-Wave - seems he was able to locate one last "Super Imaginative Chogokin" (23rd Edition) Ryuki for me! Sweetness. He just tacked it onto my existing order so I didn't pay any shipping overhead for it either. That was cool of him.

Now it's time to twiddle my thumbs waiting for this stuff to arrive...

Also got a shipping confirmation from YesAsia so I gotta guess that my stuff will arrive at my parent's house next week... (I have that particular shop ship there so that my folks get to watch my Chinese movies if they choose to). I think they'll get a kick out of "House of Fury" - my father has a thing for comedies... especially action-slapstick.

A colleague stopped by my office today. Must've been one hell of a short week for her considering we just had Victoria Day but she was on her way out for the weekend (it's Wednesday for cryin' out loud!)... Anyway, said she was looking forward to taking some course with me... and that was when it dawned on me that I have next week off! Yay! I'm off-site for technical training so I won't be at the ass-end of town for a change.

Speaking of being in the middle of civilization, I stopped at Best Buy after work today on the way. Scored a 2-pack of anime this time for the insane price of $22. Something called Millenium Actress (I read about this before but I don't remember anything about it - I think it's a super-natural thriller). And the other was Ghost in the Shell 2 (the long-awaited sequel to a mid-90's cyberpunk classic)... And yeah, I made sure the spine on Ghost was marked with "V4" indicating this was one of the discs that was issued after the factory recall when fans made an uproar over the wacky sub-title job they did. Nobody's sure why Miramax replaced the official translation as seen in theatres with a set of "closed-captioned" text based on the English dub dialogue. It's not like they had any real work to do since all the translations were already done.

Anywho - will post some reviews after I've had some time with these.

random: civil engineering

Now hear this:

A civil-engineer is not just a well-mannered train driver.

Goodies from Toy-Wave

A thanks go out to Ken again for bringing me access to goodies of all kinds from Asia by way of the mircle of Internet e-commerce. In the mail: Kamen Rider Faiz SIC, a PVC statue of Maria Fleed (from Goldorak, of course), and a couple of Microman renditions of Street Fighter 2 characters.

I had also inquired about an SIC edition of Kamen Rider Ryuki but Ken says he was sold out at the time... but that he'd look for one from his suppliers. That was nice of him but I hope he doesn't intend to charge me a finder's fee considering he was already listing it on the site. ~_~;

I'm not big on the SIC line as they're yet another line-up of doodads for me to crowd into my cramped apartment. But there's something arguably cool about the concept. SIC is a line of original re-interpretations of well-known Japanese super-heroes. The Kamen-Riders are kinda like a grown-up "Power Ranger" - themes tend to be a little darker and are geared towards an older audience... albiet a youthful older audience. But still, there's a noticeable difference in presentation and product. As for Faiz and Ryuki in particular, I was able to watch these incarnations thanks to the wonders of modern tech... a little something we call bit-torrent and so they have a special place inside me. ^_^

Another order from this weekend went through YesAsia.com - specializing in legit DVD releases from overseas. Got DVDs of House of Fury, the "Star Mobile" concert event from last winter, a concert by "12 Girl Band" (a marvelous team of laides performing on traditional Chinese string-instruments), and a music-video collection of some HK pop group.

Funny, I feel so much better now - like things have really gone back to normal now that I have something to look forward to in the mail.

For the masses - no RSS at eBloggy?

On a completely random note: seems my geeking out has caught up with eBloggy. I've just recently discovered that Blogger.com generates an RSS/Atom feed and I've placed a dynamically-updated feed graphic over at my FusionAce blog that links to this one. Unfortunately I can't seem to do the same over here.

I've gone over all the documentation at eBloggy and they don't seem to support RSS at all. In fact, the manner in which their system publishes the full blog results in a bunch of dynamically generated code that doesn't necessarily cooperate with feed readers like BurningFeed.com. Some XML weirdness in their objects aren't "Feed-friendly" and BurningFeed's system won't parse the code correctly. That rather sucks because I know a few people read this particular blog and are probably missing out on the other one.

I wonder - is there a way I can generate a feed myself after reading in the HTML page from ebloggy?

Anyway... no time to waste on this any more. Have some stuff in the mail again. Will blog that later tonight.

So if anybody out there knows how to make your own RSS feed out of an existing web-page, please comment and tip me!! Thanks in advance.

Sith Happens

Initial reactions: satisfaction... somehow I'm now thinking, it was all worthwhile. The pointlessness of episodes 1 and 2 suddenly diminish in the wake of episode 3. Everything, and I mean everything is wrapped up in this final film - bringing us all the way full circle to where the original Star Wars picked up. So I can gladly say, for once, George Lucas and his cronies delivered what they promised.

Starfish and I left work together, headed to the mall for a bite to eat and then crammed into a packed house. We say practically front row (thankfully, actually the third row) so we were pretty much overwhelmed by the size of the screen... as a general rule, avoid the first 4 rows at all costs... but we were running late as it was.

We saw the coolest thing at the ToysRUs tho. Just passing by after eating we stopped there to take a quick peek at the Star Wars tie-in goodies. For whatever reason (I'm quite surprised actually) this particular retail location had a few of those Master Replica light-sabre props for sale - the ones that actually light up and have the motion-sensors to coordinate sound FX. I could see the wheels in Starfish's head turning... hmm... $150 bucks... a baby on the way... yeah, I'm sure his fiance would love to hear he spent that much on a movie prop.
...and I would cement my reputation as a home-wrecker. ^_^;

On a somewhat related note, I had special-ordered some parts at the local Games Workshop location a while ago. They left me a messsage today but since I hadn't come home before going to the mall with Starfish, didn't know that I could've stopped by to pick up my parts today. What irony. Now I'll have to head over after work on my way back to Sherbrooke tomorrow afternoon.

Just as well, I've learned not to drive past Montreal on a Friday before a long weekend. The traffic is a nightmare. So I'm thinking I'll just hang around town for a bit and leave later in the evening.

Whee! I can see!

Feels weird... I haven't updated my prescription eyewear in what feels like forever (honestly I can't recall what year I got the previous pair of glasses). I think they were some time 10 years ago. The optometrist said my sight hadn't worsened much over time (I last went for an exam 4 years ago).

At the time I thought to myself, "I've got insurance for this - may as well go fancy" and used my prescription for a pair of shades. The result was that when the sun was out - I could see better than on a cloudy day. ^_^;
But not by much.

So this time around, when I picked up my new glasses, making the jump from a 10-year-old prescription to the current one was insanely disorienting. The optometrist on duty fitted me and suggested I drive home with my old pair.

As the sun was out, I drove home with my sunglasses to ease the transition. At home I switched over to my new glasses... that was 3 hours ago. I've done dishes, watched a bit of television, read a bit, even went to the bathroom. Still feels weird. I'm pretty sure I'll be good once I get up in the morning though.

eye-wear: just in time for Star Wars?

So I just got a call from the optician. My new glasses are finally ready! (Actually, it was a little faster than expected). Going over to get them fitted right after work today.

Works out because I have plans to see Star Wars tomorrow night. Now I'll see every little detail on the screen. ^o^;

Yup - I'm finally going to do the whole cultural-icon thing. I've had the worst luck with Star Wars films at the theatre. Never been able to go on an opening weekend to soak up the atmosphere or excitement for the new film.

May 1999 was when I moved here... I was lucky to meet up with my college buddies in Montreal a couple of weeks later to see Episode 1 (hidesight would later reveal that the movie sucked anyway).

When 2002 rolled around, life got in the way. None of my friends were available to see Episode 2 with me. Those who saw it had their own plans in advance. I did the geek thing and ended up going by myself on a rainy Sunday morning (which worked out just fine because I have a tendency to zone out everything when I'm in my theatre seat anyway). But still - would've been so much more fun to be with Starfish or somebody.

This time - I'm grabbing Starfish after work and heading over to line-up. Nothing's going to stop me. Well... not unless our process cycle still hasn't finished by tomorrow. But even then... ^_^;

...I'm sure I could convince somebody else to go with.

It's official: I AM Comic Book Guy

Been a miserable weekend out so I decided this weekend would be the one where I could play the hermit.

There was a time I was into popular anime (I suppose I was ahead of my time). Now I more or less stick with the titles I know leaving the disposable stuff to the mindless masses of pre-teens who think they're cool because they watch the latested digital rips from out of Japan.

But this weekend I was in the mood for something a little less cerebral. That is, I had just come from watching the remake of Appleseed (which is damn cool, by the way). Give me some fan-service, damn it!. I just wanna see T&A for a while.
So I downloaded Ikki Toussen - a street fighting actioner... featuring a young girl who not only kicks ass in a major way, but also in a strange manner of coincidence manages to have her skirt and shirt torn apart in just about every second scene.
...I (shamefully admit) liked it...

So anyway, Saturday afternoon rolled around (the sun never did come out yesterday) and I was still in my pajama pants. Around 3:20pm I decided to head over to the only theatre still playing Frank Miller's Sin City. Yes, it was across town but I made it (which is surprising as people have a tendency to drive like numbnuts when it's rainy out).
And yes, I went into a movie alone.

babou hasn't been around in a week - he's on vacation (good for him!) and I didn't want to disturb his well-deserved break. I feel for that workaholic. And just about everyone else I know has either already seen the movie, or has absolutely no interest in yet another comic-based film... especially those based on a comic most people have never heard of.

I for one enjoyed it as I'd just finished reading a few of those books only weeks ago. I really appreciated its style - a send-up of the old film-noir look and feel. You either loved it, or laughed at it, but you couldn't possibly hate it.

Hmm... I was sort of counting on better weather today but it doesn't look it. Not too sure what this Sunday will be like. Maybe just go for a grocery run....

my desktops

I posted these on the TC forums but figured it'd be fun to share these in my own blog.

On the left is my desktop at home. Besides a butt-load of crap sitting unsorted on the desktop, it features a custom-generated background image from the Sin City movie web-site - arguably the coolest gimmick I've ever seen on a movie promotional site.

On the right is my desktop at work. No - don't bother, there's no sensitive info in the capture (except maybe the revelation that the Canadian government uses MS Outlook. The pic is from the Ghost In the Shell series. I've also embedded my favourite hyperlinks all over the background so it acts like a default homepage.

not geeeking out fast enough

Seems that lately I haven't been on the ball. A few months ago I managed to download the remake of Appleseed (a modern CG-animated feature-film based on the old sci-fi manga classic). At the time I woke up on a Wednesday morning, checked my bit-torrent, found it was okay - watched about 5 minutes of it and then left for work... later totally forgetting about it thinking: well, sooner or later I'll do a DVD of it and watch it in the living room with the full 5.1 sound (let's hear it for OGG-Vorbis codecs).

I was later reminded of this set of files while browsing the forums at Robot-Japan. This was several months later...

Nevermind this whole time Appleseed had been long-since licensed for North American distrubution and the fansub on my hard-drive was already highly illegal. ^_^;

Naturally, last night I'm at the mall placing an order for a new pair of glasses when I wander into HMV to find that very movie for a bargain basement price of only $15... So much for that Ogg-Vorbis business...

the part that sucks

Hmm... a little while ago I made the resolution to use my credit card more often. Sounds nuts, right? Most people need to watch their spending when it comes to plastic. Not me. See my problem is this - I'm addicted to paying up front. I dislike the feeling of owing money when I use credit.

No - it's not logical. So long as I don't carry a balance, I shouldn't worry about it. A general rule in finance is that the longer you can delay payment without penalty of interest, the better off you are because your money is worth more.

I noticed a while back (a few years actually) that I was getting services charges at my bank for using cash-debit too often. My service-plan comes with 10 free transactions (or something like that). That's any time money comes in or out of the account - except for my direct deposit salary.

So after my car insurance, my rent, and a couple of bills, I'm actually down to being able to use my debit card something like 6 or 7 times a month. Invariably, I'll wind up with a few bucks to pay because I'll likely make something like 20 purchases per month - plus withdrawing actual paper money from bank machines.

The idea behind my experiment was simple: put as much crap on my credit card as possible in a month. Groceries, gassing up, my trips to the comics shop, eating out... I should be able to consolidate all those individual transactions into a single payment at the end of the month and avoid exceeding my transaction limit.

What I didn't count on: I never actually realized how much I spent on non-essentials. My bills arrived today... removing my groceries and gas money, my credit-card bill was still rather stunning... I spent somewhere on the order of 500 bucks on non-essential "living" expenses. Granted, one of those was that Oakley watch I bought through eBay. But still. I never realized.

On other flip side of this revelation - it dawned on me that I'm actually doing fairly well of myself earning a living. Point of fact: my parents would surely have a cow if they knew how much I spent on all the crap I write about in this blog. ^_^;;

Sassy T ...take 2

Seen on UDG's shirt this afternoon:
A cartoony look-alike of Oscar the Grouch.
Caption: "Nice Can"

Wwwwwwaaaaait. I'm not gonna read that one out loud. That's a harrassment waiting to happen. That sneaky little-

@_@;

OK... so I'm not a beer kinda guy so... maybe I don't get this...

Heineken commercial with Jennifer Aniston

...rumour has it she's available now, eh?

yep - things slowing back to normal

Started reading that Sin City book I picked up yesterday - it's great. Not a huge fan of Frank Millar's art but it's very well-suited to this sort of story. Very raw. Much better than his mainstream super-hero work.

Also got around to giving the new CD a spin - it's great. Got a new favourite song already. The insert mentions that this was the new theme for an upcoming PS2 game... a bit of research turned up thisRed Ninja: End of Honor. Looks pretty sweet but not too sure if I'll ever get around to this one.

Oh... yeah - something else I happened upon this morning:
Kamen Rider Photoshop Project
Here's a little something to do when you've got a bunch of action figures, a digital camera, and a lot of Photoshop-time on your hands.

It's actually quite impressive as the guy has essentially captured a choreographed fight scene from an episode of Kamen Rider 555 complete with recreations of all the visual FX as seen in the TV series...

Me, Marv, and Yoko ...and that little Batman.

You'd think one of these days I'd learn my lesson - I'm bound to find some crap on top of all the comics I originally intended to buy every time I wander into the shop after a long day at the office...

After I scoured the ailses for the usual stack of books (this week's included New Avengers #5, Legion of Super-Heroes #5, and Amazing Fantasy #8), I ended up aimlessly poking my nose through every nook and cranny in the place. I decided Catwoman was lonely again so I grabbed another one of those Micronaut-styled Batman guys. Also snagged the last copy of Sin City (seems the original collected edition featuring Marv has been selling like hot-cakes since the movie came out). Now's my chance to find out all about the hub-bub for myself.

And finally, here's the kicker for the night: finally managed to find the new Ishida album. Ms. Yoko Ishida is known to a small cult-following thanks to her huge repetoire of anime theme-songs, the first of which was over ten years ago when she (still not more than a kid at the time) performed the ending theme to season 2 of Sailor Moon, "A Maiden's Policy." Lucky for me, Pioneer has seen fit to distribute English-packaged CDs of her music across North American via their Geneon label.



I don't know what it is, the insert for this particular album features photos of her that look kind-a photoshopped... nobody has any right to be that beautiful. Her previous album made her out to be more plain, which I quite prefer, actually. Overall, I was always rather surprised that she even turned out to look exactly the way I had imagined her a decade ago when I first heard her voice. Generally strange thought.

Late e-mails and expired coupons

Ugh - I hate when things don't come together.

A couple of months ago I was rewarded a coupon for $5 at YesAsia.com (you pretty much get one with each order - if only to get you to order again soon). They send an automated email when your coupon's about to expire. According to the text in said email, it's implied that you should get this warning about 10 days before the expiration. Problem: my expiry was today and I got the e-mail yesterday. In the time it took me to login and view my coupon code it had already been wiped.

This particularly bugs me because just last night I was thinking about doing another mail order (see previous blog-entry). And on top of this, there were indeed a couple of Asian DVDs I wanted - but didn't because I figured I'd save on shipping by waiting until "House of Fury" came out... and it won't for another two weeks.

Grr... Looks like back to full-pricing for me. ~_~;

The rent and all that other fun stuff... huh?

Yeah - fun stuff. It's the start of May and I'm due to shell out this month's rent. And same with the parking spot at the office. And somehow I manage to find myself on a Monday night sitting in front of the terminal again scouring eBay for more crap.

It's a strange feeling - I've just gotten so used to looking forward to something arriving in the mail. Now that Wolvie is safely stored away behind glass with his new roomie Spidey, I'm just a little out of sorts... like I need to keep up the buying frenzy.

Speaking of Wolvie, after getting him cleaned up a little, I made some unfortunate discoveries. Now I know how loosely applied the term "good shape" can be used.

1)Besides being dirty, looks like someone tried to clean him before because the paint job appears to be thinning in some places.
2)I figured out why the claws on one side were cooked: the thing must've been dropped at one point. On the same side, there is a chip out of the elbow about an 8th-inch in diameter. Small, yes. But remember, this is a bust about 4 inches tall. It's all relative.
3)There another imperfection on the back of the base. Might've been a casting error in the porcelain though... I'll let this one go.
4)The auction flat-out lied about the edition. Yes, I received a box marked 480/9000. But the bust inside was actually number 8000-something.

All told, I'm willing to let all this slide because like I said, I got it for a fantastic price. But it's irritating that someone out there was so friggin' careless to treat a work of art so badly. Spidey is the same age and has been in my home for just as long and is in absolutely MINT condition. And for a majority of that ownership, he stood on a table in my living room completely exposed to the elements of every day life. All he needed was a little dusting with a damp cloth now and then.

Now... what to do about my next impulsive mistake? I've always wanted a Nightcrawler bust in my living room too... ^_^;;