The last movie you saw...

[spudthedestroyer]

I've been playing Third Age which is this mainpaged Medieval 2: Total War mod...
http://www.dead-donkey.com/modules/news ... php?id=535

Its rather good, very high quality for a mod. There's some balancing issues, but then I suppose trolls are supposed to be unstoppable. Part three should be out sooner or later, they are adding ents

[dinky]

thanks for the link. gonna have to reinstall this puppy!

wait. frack! that's just the link to the news article.

[Jynks]

Watched Jack Brooks Monster Slayer.....

I kinda liked it.. sure it is a bit hit and miss but I think there heat was in the right place.. Was great to see old school puppets instead of CG all over the place... and the poor impulse control problems of the main guy was fun to watch... the way he was sorta board and pissed off all the time was cool. I hope they make another one of these and expand on it.. I mean if they can make 9 hellrasers they can pump a few of this character out I hope.

Like I said it is a bit hit and miss but if they do a sequel I'll watch it.

Also watched LA Confidential again... man watching a GOOD movie really shows you how CRAP most others are

Has anyone seen MOON?

[spudthedestroyer]

thanks for the link. gonna have to reinstall this puppy!

wait. frack! that's just the link to the news article.

At the bottom of every news article is the source link

[dinky]

jep. got it. danke.

gonna install next week. might be able to use it for a class on epic & fantasy gaming ("literature" classes in america are such complete and utter bullshit, but that's cool cuz I do stuff like this in them)

[Jynks]

I know a guy that did a thesis on myths and legends and the movement form oral, to written to visual to interactive. In it he suggested that the modern myths of the future are likely to come out of these non-traditional mediums... Like say terminator.. in 500 years what will that story archetype be... or some epic quest played by 20 million people on some future MMO.... . . Uni students.. pffft what a bunch of wack jobs

[dinky]

indeed. that's the basis of the course I'm teaching next week: epic poetry (iliad & beowulf) and mmorpg's. WoW and games like it obviously (re)create their own medieval fantasy realm (i.e. history). but the main idea is how the gaming community works. the argument goes that the relationship(s) between guild members and the gaming community as a whole is formed similarly to the culture of the ancient epics. for example, you could be the leader of the guild on a raid, but that doesn't make you the best "warrior" in the group. and it's the best guy who gets the greatest "glory" from the rest of the members. (now imagine leader = agamemnon, best warrior = achilles). iunno. we'll see how it goes. should be fun for 6 weeks.

[dinky]

watched the latest WEEDS and TRUE BLOOD. Also watched some more anime: GUNDAM SEED (50 eps) and the follow-up GUNDAM SEED DESTINY (50 eps). it was ok for what it was. these military mecha shows have a lot to offer, but they all seem to suffer the same debilitating shortcomings: recycled plots, will of the pilot transcends physics, a predictable "tech tree" of "special" mechs as the series progresses. they also seem to suggest love interest(s) w/o ever staging them, which makes for kind of half-assed characters. people die and then miraculously come back, saved, without much of an explanation. and then there's the whole "how seriously can you take people fighting in these voltron suits to begin with?" issue. it makes me appreciate the way(s) in which FMA and BERSERK were able to make use of a large cast of characters. anyway...this is more "mature" than VOLTRON, but it's of the same ilk w/o the nostalgia factor.

[Jynks]

TRUE BLOOD

I just can not watch this show it is sooooo bad.

and then there's the whole "how seriously can you take people fighting in these voltron suits to begin with?" issue.

hahah.. yea totally. It is interersting to see that with transformers Giant Mecha is kind the rage in hollywood. Gundam and Robotech (Macross) have both been greenlit and on there way to the big screen. While I have given up some hope of these films being "good" I do think they will be worth seeing. Gundam or Robotech in full hollywood style CG glory has the opportunity to look fantastic.

In fact Anime is having a big kick in the US.. We those 2 films series as well as Steve Spielberg doing Akira, as well as Ghost in the Shell and James Cameron doing a planned 3 part Gunnm (Battle Angel Alita) We have Astroboy coming out right now, we had Speed Racer.. And Voltron, Cowboy Beebop, Ninja Scoll, Thunder Cats... hmm I could prob find more if I did a google search... I know it is not anime but we got a new Heman coming as well and a new Red Sonya as I am talking about Heman.

While these movies will prob be kinda sucky.. at least they will look good.

[dinky]

I seriously doubt that most of them will look good. production values issue. cameron and speilberg flicks will command serious budgets, but iunno about the other stuff. I'd expect a lot of the craptastic blue screen shite.

this always bothers me about the humanoid suits: why the fuck would a human shape be a good idea. the "pilot" sits in a cockpit with controls similar to an airplane. what the shit is having legs and a head going to do for someone in that position? it would make a hell of a lot more sense if the people inside the cockpits had some sort of neurological connection to the mechs (ala Neo in the Matrix). you need something that makes head, arm and leg actions intuitive. iunno. I'm sure plenty of other people have thought through this. these shows aren't new. it just annoys me that they show them in action like they're actually human.


TRUE BLOOD is decent. there's blood and sex and no diamond skin and no walking around in the daylight when you're a VAMPIRE so...it's better than 80% of the vampire fodder in the past 20 years.

edit: forgot to mention why I came on here. I watched SWORD OF THE STRANGER. it has high production value animation (to be expected on a movie), and the action and overall movie are decent. but MORIBITO (26 ep series) is a clearly superior version of the same basic plot with the genders of the protagonists switched.

[spudthedestroyer]

I like True Blood, although not seen the latest episode. It has the potential to go really shit at anytime, because its a 'horror comedy romance' that doesn't quite do any of them right, however, I find it enjoyable and its a decent watch.

It is quite literally sex and blood.

As for it being better than vampire fodder, I'm interpretting that as the pain by numbers stuff and indeed it is. If you are talking all vampire stuff, then no, 80% needs reducing.

[dinky]

maybe. iunno. but for every 1 vampire show I think is decent, 4 of them are shlock.

[Jynks]

Near dark was left of empires top 10 vampire movies of all time.. and twilight and interview was there !!!!

[dinky]

you know that there are more females on the planet than men, right?

5 eps into GUNSLINGER GIRL. like it, but it could still be shit. the narrative technique keeps things interesting by monkey wrenching the chronology, but that will only take you so far. there are 7 eps left in the series and there isn't any discernable tension. I chose it because it was sold as a kind of DOLLHOUSE/I, ROBOT plot (cyborged, brainwashed girls are assassins and one gets her memory back or something similar).

[dinky]

ICE AGE 3: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS 3D. good. nothing memorable. but a nice ride. more or less the same as the previous two movies. fun. entertaining. you won't miss anything if you don't see it. kinda the way I feel about amusement parks.

[Jynks]

the last 2 sucked donkey balls.

[dinky]

I thought all 3 were fine. as movies (narratives) there's nothing to them. it's a series of sketches or episodes. but they're not bad and some of them are quite good (like the rhinos playing "extinction" in the mud pool). I would rather do what I did: see UP once and ICE AGE 3 once rather than go see UP twice even though it's considerably better than ICE AGE. frankly, I wouldn't care to see either of them twice. not that they're bad, but if you've seen it once, you've seen all there is to see.

finished GUNSLINGER GIRL (s1). it was good. understated in a way. pretty good. I don't care for the setting though. somehow having all of this in an Italian government agency seems weird, but I have no rational reason why it's *wrong* as opposed to any other country.

[spudthedestroyer]

Near dark was left of empires top 10 vampire movies of all time.. and twilight and interview was there !!!!

empire couldn't review their way out of a paper back anymore.

[dinky]

damn those paper backs!

tried to watch GUNDAM 00 but gave up after 5+ eps. I only stuck with it that long because I had both series in HD, but it was dreadful. there's absolutely no draw to the series. it looks like they're trying to take it slow and unfold an "epic" style narrative. but maybe that's just looking for the best in people, because I found it completely unbelievable (characters, motivations) and 80% of the characters were just magically there. I can't get into a show like that. in fact, it's a pretty piss poor approach to narrative. this isn't rocket science: if you're introducing completely new protagonists, give the audience a reason to love/hate them. but no. this was complete apathy. I was pissed. waste of hd and bandwidth I could've used to seed other series. AND the fuckerz airing on the SCI-FI CHANNEL now with dvds slated for August. bummer.

LOVE HINA. harem or ecchi or something kinda series? I don't think I'll make it through the entire 27 eps. it's not as painful as NHK, and I'm not completely opposed to the school drama/game of the sexes type of material, but this is too kooky with too much of that ally mcbeal daydreaming shite.

back on track next week with the live action serials.

[Jynks]

Love Hina!! omg.. your like traveling back in time... oh wait .. I am thinking of Urusei Yatsura.. nvr mind.


Love Hina isn't ecchi btw.. that is a English slang for Hentai witch is the sex anime. I am not a big fan of these wierd anime classifications... like Love Hina is called a shoren or something like that witch means show about a school boy... buy why nto just call teh darn thing a comedy.. that will do for me.

If you wan ta really funny bishōjo try Hanaukyō Maid Tai - La Verite..... it is a remake of Hanaukyō Maid Tai.. witch was canseled due to production problems ... but you can skip it and go strait to la Verite as the first eps of this show are basicly near remakes of the originals.

Neither of these were released in English as far as i know so you need to go to one of the fandub sites and grab a copy form there.