This has been AnaKhouri’s Discovery of the Day.

I kind of want to see it, now.

Banglar King Kong Trailer

Gohan LOVED this, by the way. He laughed whenever KingKong was onscreen. Even babies can tell when someone’s weraing a bad ape suit.

Another American Godzilla Movie?!

Like they didn’t learn when the first one bombed? It’s supposed t be out in 2012. Hopefully all those nuts who think the Mayans predicted the end of the world are right and we’ll be dead before this comes out.

(the worst part is that the person who is responsible is named Roland, and I have a friend named Roland who is awesome so I think this Roland Emmerich director guy should change his name so as not to besmirch the reputation of my friend Roland, who rocks hardcore and has a dog and brews his own beer and collects bicycles and also he is single, ladies)

Then, last night, I dreamed we had a house and there was a tornado and Jeff Bridges happened to be passing our house in a black SUV so he pulled over and came in to take shelter in our basement with us.  He was with his wife and their five little kids (except he only has three kids and they are grown-up, I looked it up).

I’m kind of curious to see what my next Jeff Bridges dream will be.

The List

1. Godzilla

I don’t get this. OK, giant dinosar thing stomps Tokyo is kind of weird, but there have been dozens of movies about giant animals and monsters. Tarantula. Them. Night of the Lepus. That one about the giant grasshoppers that stars the pervy captain from Airplane!.  And taken in context, Godzilla is a powerful look at Japan’s nuclear fears after, you know, getting the shit bombed out of them. Twice. Not to mention it’s hella entertaining to watch.

2. Tampopo

I watched this one for a film class in college. It’s pretty freaking weird. But it’s nice too, and the food in the movie looks delicious.

I’m not sure how I missed films #3 and #4. I like movies where schoolgirls get whipped and stuff. And women with undies on their faces.

…wait, what?

7. Ringu

The first time I watched Ringu, I was all alone and I was like, “What? This isn’t scary…” but then I stayed awake all night with my head under the covers. It’s actually better than the book.

9. Battle Royale

Oh, come on. Ever since “The Most Dangerous Game”, this sort of ‘hunting humans’ story has become almost cliche.  It’s pulpy and silly and gratuitous (and the book is even more so) but it’s fun to watch and not really all that weird.

10. Ichi the Killer

Ichi is pretty weird. But, like most of Miike’s movies, underneath the weirdness there is a serious message. I’m not going to tell you what it is.

11. Visitor Q

Oh, fuck. Visitor Q is probably the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen, but in a good way. It has incest, heroin shooting, mom beating, sodomy with a microphone, necrophilia, breast milk and assorted nuttiness. But in the end, it’s about putting a shattered family back together, and that’s nice.  Visitor Q is actually my favorite movie on this list.

12. Suicide Club

This one is definitely weird and shocking and gross, but it’s weird just for the sake of being weird. There is an interesting theme underneath it all, but the companion film Noriko’s Dinner Table is a much better movie that conveys the message in a much more comprehensible and compelling manner.

13. Dark Water

Dark Water is really good. I wouldn’t say it’s weird, necessarily, because it’s very similar in theme and tone to many other j-horror movies, particularly Ringu, which is unsurprising since both are based on works by the same author.  It’s very creepy.

I haven’t seen Moon Child, #14, yet. I should, though. Me Shapiro Keats are secretly big Gackt fans.

20. Death Note

This one’s pretty weird. But it;s not bad, if you don’t see it in a theater full of screeching teenage L fangirls.

Here’s one I think they missed: Miike’s Gozu. Unlike Visitor Q or Ichi the Killer, it actually has no deeper meaning that I could discern. Chihuahua murder, transvestite restaurant owners, disappearing dead Yakuza, breast milk (that seems to be a thing with Miike), skinned gangsters, a cow-headed demon and ultimately, a young woman somehow giving birth to a grown old dead dude. I didn’t say it was good, but it sure is weird as fuck.

As long as they don’t let his son Goro direct anything ever again, I’m cool with it…wait, he’s got a project in development? Crap. Tales From Earthsea was truly wretched.

I Hope There\’s Animals in It…You Think?

Interview with Spike

Reeves says all the main characters are in this film. But what I want to know is, will the Shaft brother be in it, in all his afro’d glory?

(and there may be hope for Reeves yet, he’s getting to be a better actor…he actually changes expression once or twice during the interview!)

Da Pic

I admit, I totally laughed when I saw it. I mean, it does look kind of goofy just loping down the street like that.

Now his siblings are intent on making a trilogy of movies about his life, to correct the misconceptions lots of people have. But I have to wonder, with all the fancy new kung fu movies and actors, is there enough of a Bruce Lee cult to make these movies profitable? Especially if they’re just about him being humorous and obedient to his parents:

The Real Bruce Lee

1. Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex

With last week’s addition of Solid State Society, Netflix now offers all of Stand Alone Complex – seasons One and Two, the two compilations (‘Laughing Man‘ and ‘Individual Eleven‘), plus SSS. If for some reason you’ve slacked off on checking out Stand Alone Complex, you now have no reason to hold back. Just make sure you’ve got a few days free in your schedule to take it all in.

2. Pale Flower

My all-time favorite yakuza flick. It doesn’t have the same manic energy that Kinji Fukusaku brought to his work of the same period, or the sheer insanity of Seijun Suzuki’s work – but for my money, Masahiro Shinoda’s moody Pale Flower is the best of the genre. Pale Flower, with its’ tale of romance between two violent misanthropes, reminds me of Breathless. Only with more hanafuda and stabbings.

3. Blackmail Is My Life

Speaking of Kinji Fukusaku…

Blackmail Is My Life isn’t Fukusaku’s best work, but it is a solid film. It starts out echoing Suzuki’s stylized techniques before settling into a grittier second half. The ending of the film is legendary, though. Fukusaku films a wounded man stumbling through a Japanese crowd.  He had expected to get gasps of terror. What he got was stoic disinterest, even as the man collapses in the middle of a busy intersecton. Brilliant.

4. Kanto Wanderer

I’ve mentioned Seijun Suzuki twice already, so it only seems fitting to add him to the list as well. Kanto Wanderer is significant as Seijun Suzuki’s debut ninkyo eiga (yakuza chivalry film). Suzuki was strictly a gun-for-hire on Kanto Wanderer, and the film itself was merely a means to fill out a double bill by Nikkatsu – but this does not make the film substandard. Indeed, despite a lack of Suzuki’s later freneticism, Kanto Wanderer is a solid yakuza flick well worth your time.

5. Lust, Caution

Ang Lee’s wartime espionage drama Lust, Caution earned mixed reviews from Stateside critics, but it’s definitely worth an evening on the couch. Plus, it racked up a significant number of awards overseas – including 8 Golden Horse trophies – proving that American film critics wouldn’t know a decent film if it sprang from their ass. Tony Leung Chiu Wai is always engaging and the cinematography is stunning. It’s also nice to see the ever-beautiful Joan Chen once again. And Tang Wei? Hot.

6. Joint Security Area

Better catch this one quick, as it expires on July 1st (yeah, bummer). Oldboy director Chan Wook Park helms this riveting military-police drama about a shooting on the border between North and South Korea. Lots of South Korean filmmakers have been examining the political tensions with their neighbors to the North, and JSA is one of the best.

7. The Host

While we’re touring Korea, it’s worth mentioning Bong Joon-ho’s terrific 2006 monster-fest The Host. While it’s nominally a creature-feature, The Host also works as a moving family drama. When a young girl is abducted by the beast-in-question, her dysfunctional family bands together to save her, and also learn to embrace their differences. It sounds really silly – but trust me, it works. Plus, the monster makes Cloverfield‘s sea mutant look retarded.

8. Masters of Horror: Takashi Miike – Imprint

There are other Miike offerings on Netflix, but this is the best. Miike’s reputation as a notorious gorehound is well-deserved, and his installment of the great horror anthology Masters of Horror is probably one of his most repulsive works. I’m not sure fucked-up really even begins to describe how off-putting Imprint is. Showtime declined to air the epsiode, relegating it to a dvd-only release while series creator Mick Garris claims even he had a hard time sitting through it.

Miike himself admitted in the Japan Times that he may have gone too far, saying “I thought that I was right up to the limit of what American television would tolerate. As I was making the film I kept checking to make sure that I wasn’t going over the line, but I evidently misestimated.”

9. Tears of the Black Tiger

All the hype about Thai cinema seems to center around a certain Mr. Tony Jaa (not undeservedly, in Mr. Jaa’s defense) but there are a ton of other gems there once you get down in the trenches. One of these is  Wisit Sasanatieng’s 2000 action flick Tears of the Black Tiger. Wonky in the extreme, Tears of the Black Tiger combines tropes and imagery from spaghetti westerns and mid-century Thai romance dramas into a psychotropic head-fuck without parallel. From the opening shot, featuring an impossible – and equally cool – headshot, you’ll be hooked.

10. Cavite

Cavite is not a great movie, but it is compelling and earnest. Filmed entirely on location in the slums of Cavite in the Philippines, filmmaker Ian Gamazon’s portrayal of his distant home country that is stark and surprising. Gamazon was forced to take on the lead role himelf after the actor he’d chose bowed out unexpectedly at the last minute, and though his performace won’t win him any Oscars he manages to pull it off. I found myself empathizing with him more than I expected to as his tormenter terrorizes him to embrace his culture in many uncomfortable ways.

And then have the pics get stolen by a computer repairman who puts them all over the Internet.

I think I need more information before I make a judgment on this one. Did the ladies in question know he was taking sex pictures, and were OK with it? Were the files in a hidden folder or on the Desktop in a folder labeled ‘Hott Sexxx Pics’?

Even if they were in a Desktop folder, I don’t think stupidity really deserves death threats. Only in exceptional cases, maybe.

He sure feels like a victim, according to this interview:

Interview on CNN

See, in America when popular celebrities show up in sex pics or videos on the Internet, we don’t flip out and thresten to kill them. Instead, we download them. Or burn them to CD and try to sell them on Craigslist.

What a great country we live in.

CollinsDesign, creators of 500 Essential Graphic Novels, have reached the other side of the Pacific. 500 Essential Anime Movies: The Ultimate Guide is the work of Helen McCarthy, British anime expert and co-author of The Anime Encyclopedia (she’s also the author of works ranging from the necessary- The Erotic Anime Movie Guide- to the bizarre- Manga Cross-Stitch). She founded and edited multiple magazines about the medium as well. So, she’s the perfect person to pick out five hundred anime films you simply must see.

Unfortunately, 500 is a big number. I certainly can’t think of five hundred movies in any medium worth seeing, much less five hundred anime movies. Neither can McCarthy. The book is a motley collection of films, OAVs, movies tied into anime series, even the six 5-minute shorts made to advertise the manga Blame!. Some of the pieces have never been released in the U.S., and many of the ones that have, have been out of print for a decade or more. And, while taste is subjective, I can argue that many of the movies on the list are hardly ‘essential’- unless it’s essential for you to see how much some of them suck.

The book is divided into sections based on genre: Science Fiction; Robots and Mecha; Fantasy and Fairy Tales; Action-Adventure and Games; Love and Death; History, Politics and Life; Mystery, Crime and Horror; School, Sports and Animals; and Experimental. Each category is further divided into a ‘Top 10’ list and the ‘Best of the Rest’.

The lists include a wide range of anime, from older films such as the first full-length feature, 1958’s Legend of the White Snake and 1968’s Little Norse Prince, to contemporary classics like Akira and Ninja Scroll. Both Ghost in the Shell movies are included, as is nearly every film Hayao Miyazaki has ever made. Each entry has a plot summary and a few notes. For example, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is lauded mostly for its innovative animation; the entry for Angel’s Egg provides trivia (the title of the movie refers to a Japanese snack food). The book’s charm lies mostly in these bits of knowledge that McCarthy provides.

But….how did the universally reviled Ninja Resurrection make the list? And Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma? And Chimera! These three titles are, quite possibly, the worst anime I have ever seen. Either McCarthy is soft-hearted enough to find good points even in this trash (she calls Blood Reign ‘one of the most chilling horror anime ever made’…I call it ‘painfully awful, with a disjointed plot, sub-par animation and laughable monsters) or she was simply desperate to fill out a list of five-hundred titles.

Similarly, touting the Sorcerer Hunters OAV or Solid State Society seems an odd move, since in order to appreciate these you’d need to watch the anime series first.

The book itself is attractive, with colorful screenshots illustrating each entry. It’s a chunky, square paperback, about an inch and a half thick. I usually wouldn’t be concerned with the dimensions of a book, but this one is a paperback, and the binding isn’t very firm; more than five hundred pages of heavy paper glued to a paper spine. It’s not going to hold up under repeated thumbings-through. And the price- $24.95- is going to put off a lot of potential buyers.

And a final complaint: the front flap identifies the cover image as being from the Tokyo Babylon OAV, while any informed anime fan could tell you it’s actually a screenshot from the Katsuhiro Otomo movie Steamboy. It’s a bit of sheer sloppiness that really irks me (there is an alternate cover featuring a still from Tokyo Babylon; but come on people! Get it right!).

McCarthy’s book is interesting for the descriptions of the films, but I wouldn’t take the list as anime gospel. Honestly, you can get a cheaper and just-as-entertaining catalog of anime (series as well as movies and OAVs) in The Anime Encyclopedia.

ANN Article

I remember Priest came out in the U.S. around the same time as this other manhwa, Island, and I ended up reading Island instead of Priest. I’m not sure Hollywood would touch Island, though. The main character is a brutal serial killer, after all. And there’s no vampires, just gross demons.

At first I thought Paul Bettany was the guy from The Fast and the Furious, but it turns out that guy is actually named Paul Walker. Paul Bettany has been in lots of movies but I only saw one of them, A Knight’s Tale, which was thoroughly lame except for him.

Bettany on the IMDB

Well, it’s happening again (and I’ll probably be seeing it again, and bitchng about the fangirls some more), only this time the movie is the second Death Note film- Death Note: The Last Name.

The nights are October 15th and 16th-appropriately close to Halloween- and here is a link to a list of participating theaters:

http://www.deathnotefilms.com/home.php

Much to the surprise of some of my friends, I didn’t read comic books when I was growing up. I watched cartoons like other kids, but I never really got into the whole comic thing. I knew the headliners like Superman, Spiderman and Batman mainly because their either had their own movies or their own cartoons. I may have heard of Iron Man and knew a bit about the character: Billionaire playboy turned superhero who flies around in a metal suit blowing shit up. That was pretty much all I knew, but it was enough. When I heard this movie was coming out I had a mix of boyish excitement and nervous dread. An Iron Man movie could either be very very cool, or very very horrible. My first question of course, was who is going to play lead head.

The answer was Robert Downey Jr., and I can honestly say once I heard it I was intrigued. I had long been a half-hearted fan of Downey ever since I first saw his drug addict performance in Less Than Zero; a movie which would ironically describe long periods of Downey’s life. Downey was this somewhat insane and unpredictable Hollywood cat. He was Johnny Depp before Johnny Depp was, although with a lot more drug and criminal baggage (or at least his was more public). In addition to this he was by all accounts, a complete asshole. Right or wrong he was at least up front about it, and that at least I always admired. I mean, who better to play a ruthless, cold, sarcastic, egotistical weapons dealer than Robert Downey Jr.? I think the trailer speaks for itself.

Even as cool as this all seemed, however, I had to know if it would live up to the hype. After seeing the movie I can honestly say it does, and then some. It is dramatic and cool without taking itself too seriously. There are a lot of comedic moments, mainly Downey’s, that just work. The script, the performances, the special effects, the direction and even the pace of the movie are superb. I’m not one to geek out when I’m at a theater, but I can honestly say I was alternating between laughing out loud, clapping, cheering and just sitting there staring in amazement. I think the best compliments I can pay the movie are these: First, I was so into the story that the special effects took a back seat, which is very impressive considering what an effects-driven movie this is. Second, I’d pay to go see it again, tomorrow.

If you are even remotely interested, or if you just want to feel like your money is well-spent when you go to the theater, then go see Iron Man. Now.