Reen too teen too teen too tee noo nee noo nee
A Life of Ninja (AKA 'Deadly Life of a Ninja') (1983), Tso Nam Lee. September 13, 11pm. View count: One.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Satoshi Kon. September 14, 7pm. View count: One.
Idiocracy (2006), Mike Judge. September 15, 10pm. View count: One.
A Life of Ninja: This is a pretty great terrible movie. 343, unpleasant, I recommend you track this fellow down.
It's narrated at the beginning (in the dub, obviously) by an american who refers to 'ninjas' (his idea of which is pretty suspect) as 'ninjers.' Which is a pretty nice windfall if you've been looking for a term that shows derision for fake ninjas, I suppose.
The whole intro sequence is taken up by myriad stupid training exercises; whipping weapons at paper cutouts of angry faces, lady ninjers mud wrestling, and needless 'teleportation' achieved by non-judicious edits. Then the whole rest of it is about some crap I can't remember. There's a lady who wants to be a ninjer, but is totally a WOMAN; some ninjer with some agenda who says things to cops like 'Ninjas can be anywhere. There could be one in front of you RIGHT NOW.' There's a bad guy with a drunken wife, and I don't know whatall. It's definitely, definitely worth locating and forcing on unsuspecting friends.
Tokyo Godfathers: I am an idiot for not having seen this, because it is great. It's lovely, and clever, and lovingly animated. It contains a lot of Kon's favorite little themes, like homeless characters and dark-haired middle-class ladies who have for one reason or another gone quietly insane. The whole plot centers around christmastime, which is interesting given Japan's attitude thereto (not really like ours). I'm curious as to how much the 'christmas miracle' concept is taken directly from western entertainment. It's still far superior to any of our christmas-themed crap. Except for maybe Will Vinton's.
But taken on its own it obviously still stands up; it's a really pleasing story, with the mawkish parts overplayed beautifully by a drag queen. Good stuff.
Idiocracy: Apparently this movie was very much held down by the man, who is FOX in this situation. It seems that, also, some of the companies whose future forms were made ludicrously different from their current corporate image were not so happy about it either. I don't quite understand this, as it doesn't differ significantly from the one referent I have ('Fox became a softcore porn channel so slowly that nobody even noticed'). Although, obviously, the Simpsons was _on_ Fox, but it seems like defamation is defamation. Can the speculative future form a business takes really be damaging to its current incarnation? I find this crazy, but, then, I am not in marketing.
This was, though, a not-unfun movie with a lot of cute observations. I still haven't untangled the level of astuteness that the content was presented with; I probably need to see it again. The 'average guy' transplanted to a time where average means something similar but more exaggerated has a lot of implications: is your allegiance to starbucks different from a future-guy's, merely because its function has changed? Is the entire story about how being a big fish in a small pond is really what an 'average' person wants? There must be something to the whole spam-beloved 'life experience is worth more than education' concept. I am not sure exactly how deep any of it goes.
It is clear that Mike Judge is not really at home thinking out working worlds; there were definitely a lot of little things that didn't quite work, although many of them can probably be chalked up to people's entrenched ways of dealing with things.
Anyhow, it's sort of an interesting movie. I will try to watch it again, and see what comes out.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Satoshi Kon. September 14, 7pm. View count: One.
Idiocracy (2006), Mike Judge. September 15, 10pm. View count: One.
A Life of Ninja: This is a pretty great terrible movie. 343, unpleasant, I recommend you track this fellow down.
It's narrated at the beginning (in the dub, obviously) by an american who refers to 'ninjas' (his idea of which is pretty suspect) as 'ninjers.' Which is a pretty nice windfall if you've been looking for a term that shows derision for fake ninjas, I suppose.
The whole intro sequence is taken up by myriad stupid training exercises; whipping weapons at paper cutouts of angry faces, lady ninjers mud wrestling, and needless 'teleportation' achieved by non-judicious edits. Then the whole rest of it is about some crap I can't remember. There's a lady who wants to be a ninjer, but is totally a WOMAN; some ninjer with some agenda who says things to cops like 'Ninjas can be anywhere. There could be one in front of you RIGHT NOW.' There's a bad guy with a drunken wife, and I don't know whatall. It's definitely, definitely worth locating and forcing on unsuspecting friends.
Tokyo Godfathers: I am an idiot for not having seen this, because it is great. It's lovely, and clever, and lovingly animated. It contains a lot of Kon's favorite little themes, like homeless characters and dark-haired middle-class ladies who have for one reason or another gone quietly insane. The whole plot centers around christmastime, which is interesting given Japan's attitude thereto (not really like ours). I'm curious as to how much the 'christmas miracle' concept is taken directly from western entertainment. It's still far superior to any of our christmas-themed crap. Except for maybe Will Vinton's.
But taken on its own it obviously still stands up; it's a really pleasing story, with the mawkish parts overplayed beautifully by a drag queen. Good stuff.
Idiocracy: Apparently this movie was very much held down by the man, who is FOX in this situation. It seems that, also, some of the companies whose future forms were made ludicrously different from their current corporate image were not so happy about it either. I don't quite understand this, as it doesn't differ significantly from the one referent I have ('Fox became a softcore porn channel so slowly that nobody even noticed'). Although, obviously, the Simpsons was _on_ Fox, but it seems like defamation is defamation. Can the speculative future form a business takes really be damaging to its current incarnation? I find this crazy, but, then, I am not in marketing.
This was, though, a not-unfun movie with a lot of cute observations. I still haven't untangled the level of astuteness that the content was presented with; I probably need to see it again. The 'average guy' transplanted to a time where average means something similar but more exaggerated has a lot of implications: is your allegiance to starbucks different from a future-guy's, merely because its function has changed? Is the entire story about how being a big fish in a small pond is really what an 'average' person wants? There must be something to the whole spam-beloved 'life experience is worth more than education' concept. I am not sure exactly how deep any of it goes.
It is clear that Mike Judge is not really at home thinking out working worlds; there were definitely a lot of little things that didn't quite work, although many of them can probably be chalked up to people's entrenched ways of dealing with things.
Anyhow, it's sort of an interesting movie. I will try to watch it again, and see what comes out.