I USED TO BE RELEVANT!

Just to have a record of what I said somewhere, so that when I get them all correct on Sunday (haha, what a joke, doubt I’ve ever done better than 60%), here are my Oscar picks for this year. Feel free to tell us your picks, or just make a mockery of my picks (I don’t mind).

Best Picture: The Artist

It’s one of those good years when the best film nominated, and my favorite in the category, is favored to win. Sadly, it’s also one of those years where the Best Picture category is almost embarrassingly mediocre for the most part.

Best Director: The Artist

They’re usually pretty uniform with Best Picture/ Best Director (not always of course), and I think it will be that way this year. Though, I love Alexander Payne’s films, and think he deserves a statue at this point in his career.

Best Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris

In some odd turn of events, people are praising The Artist for having the best screenplay of the year… It must have some beautifully written action/description paragraphs… I thought The Artist succeeded mostly through a *simple* story, told with keen direction, great set pieces, and charismatic acting. Not brilliant in the story itself, but mainly in the execution of it all. I never thought the screenplay would get praised as much as it is. And because of that, I’m going with Woody. Midnight in Paris is his best film in years.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Probably the best screenplay of the year from any film. And I would like to see Jim Rash (Dean Pelton from Community) on stage with an Oscar.

Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants

I think it might actually end up going to Jean Dujardin, which is fine I guess. But if the Academy does things right, they’ll recognize Clooney gave the better, more skilled performance.

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

You know what I hate about the eventual award for Streep here? The fact that she’s in a bad movie. I know the argument there is that it’s a great performance in a bad movie. Well, based on the trailers (I don’t ever plan on actually watching The Iron Lady), it doesn’t even look like that great a job she’s doing, certainly not better than other work she’s done and *not* won an award for. And the Academy is then basically giving an endorsement for people to rent and spend money on a bad movie. I get it if it’s a mind blowing performance that MUST be seen, but this doesn’t seem the case, and now my mom will probably waste two hours watching The Iron Lady when it comes out on DVD because she’ll see that Meryl Streep won an award for it. Rooney Mara deserves the award for Dragon Tattoo, for not only doing a great job, but also being in a movie people should actually see.

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

She was the best part about The Help, and probably the best in the category as well.

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Seems pretty unanimous. Sorry, Fat Jonah.

Film Editing: Hugo

Schoonmaker ftw. Even though I thought the first half of Hugo was draggy, for some reason I get the feeling Thelma will win this one. My pick would have been Dragon Tattoo, or even Moneyball, over Hugo. But I’m just going with who I think will win. Most people liked Hugo way more than I did (I didn’t hate it, I gave it a 6.5 out of 10).

Cinematography: The Tree of Life

I hated The Tree of Life, but honestly the only thing it had going for it in my opinion was spectacular cinematography. Plus it’s winning other awards for cinematography, so it seems logical.

Art Direction: Hugo

Non stop set pieces! The Artist was really good in this category too, but I think Hugo has the edge.

Best Costume Design: Hugo

Though, a Madonna-directed period piece about rich British people (W.E.)? That also seems like a correct choice. Meanwhile, the guy who created the scorpion jacket from Drive didn’t even get a nomination.

Best Makeup: Albert Nobbs

The whole movie is about making women look like men. It’s about makeup! Though, who knows, they could decide to give The Iron Lady TWO Oscars… Semi-related side note; does anyone else watch Face Off on SyFy Network? It’s a reality show where people compete to make movie makeup (mostly monster kind of stuff). It’s pretty cool, just sayin’.

Best Sound Mixing: War Horse

Haven’t seen it (it screamed ‘wait for DVD’ from the get go), but seems logical here.

Best Sound Editing: War Horse

My gut was to go with Transformers, because it probably does in fact have the best sound editing, but the previous two Transformers films have been nominated for the same award and lost both times. So what will be different about this time? Going with War Horse to dominate the two sound categories.

Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I think everyone agrees the apes were pretty awesome in that movie. Plus, it’s a good movie in general. That usually helps.

Best Original Score: The Artist

It’s a silent film. The entire thing is music driven.

Best Original Song: “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets

If this doesn’t win, my TV will receive a spinning axe kick. Yes, I can do that. Probably. I haven’t tried.

Best Animated Film: Rango

Rango was in my top 5 films of last year. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if one of the foreign entries no one has seen pulls this off instead.

Best Documentary Feature: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

To be honest, it’s the only film I’ve seen in this category, BUT (as you can see from my post from earlier this week) I think it’s the bee’s knees.

Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation (Iran)

As a middle-class American, I have seen none of the films in this category. But I’ve *heard* that A Separation is pretty great.

Live Action Short: Raju

Watched all the trailers for these, and Raju is my bet to win.

Documentary Short: Saving Face

Again, after watching all the trailers (thoroughly!), Saving Face seems like the most impactful doc.

Animated Short: The Fantastic Flying Books or Mr. Morris Lessmore

See my write-up from earlier.

Let’s see how shitty I do this year!

Premise:  Michael Shannon plays a man from Ohio who starts having nightmares about huge storms coming his way, so he gets a a little obsessive about expanding the tornado shelter in his backyard.  His wife doesn’t understand why he’s going crazy, and the whole ordeal begins to take a toll on his home life.  Is the movie just about the pains of having a mental breakdown, or is it actually about the end of the world…?  YOU DECIDE!

Pros:

-The acting is perfect from the two leads.  Michael Shannon plays it pretty restrained with clenched fists for the most part, except for a scene when he violently explodes in rage (one of the best scenes in the movie).  There’s a notably dynamic range that makes his performance pretty brilliant.  Jessica Chastain is about as good as anyone can be as his worried wife.  Best redhead in Hollywood?  Maaaaaaaaaaaaybe?!

-It has a deliberately slow pace, but a fitting one.  It’s not exactly an action movie.

-The dream/hallucination/delusion sequences are cool, and not overdone.

-Plenty of natural tension.  It didn’t seem forced.  I was on the edge of my seat near the end of the movie.

Cons:

-Probably could have lopped 15 minutes off it here and there.

-I’ve just sat here for 3 minutes thinking how to word this…  And I think I’ve failed.  I guess something about it just didn’t seem that spectacular about it overall.  Like it could have been a little more sensational.  Or maybe more frightening.  Or more visceral.  I don’t know.  The movie is missing one or more necessary adjectives.

Final Thoughts:  I liked the whole package of Take Shelter, but I didn’t love it.  It’s the kind of movie that I always argue there should be more of, but I feel it slightly missed the mark.  I hope you don’t take that the wrong way.  Take Shelter is a really good movie.  You should watch it.  It’s just not a *great* movie.  At least it has the kind of ambiguous ending that will get you talking afterwords.  Is it real, is it a dream?  What does one way or the other mean in terms of the rest of the movie that preceded it?  (Without spoiling it) I took it as what was happening was real, at least on my first viewing, and it slightly diminished what they tried to achieve with their mental illness angle.  Maybe that’s what I thought was slightly off…  yeah!  I need to rewatch it again sometime and see if my perception changes.  And I’d *like* to watch it again sometime, which is always the sign of a good movie.

8 out of 10

I may be really late to the game on this one, but I hadn’t even heard of Paradise Lost until very recently. And then a week ago I watched Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory on HBO, which sparked me to immediately purchase the first two on Amazon. I’ve pretty much been completely consumed with the films for the past week.

If you’ve never heard of these films, they are documentaries that cover the arrest, trial, incarceration, and eventual release of a few kids from Arkansas known as the West Memphis Three. The three teens; Damien Echols (18), Jesse Misskelley (17), and Jason Baldwin (16) were all arrested in 1993 for the grisly murders of three 8-year-old boys whose bodies were found in a wooded area near a truck stop.

West Memphis, Arkansas is a highly religious town, and immediately the crimes were unjustly and ignorantly labeled as Satanic sacrifices. Damien, a harmless if maybe misguided teen, wore all black clothing, listened to heavy metal music, and dabbled in the Wiccan religion, causing the entire town to label him as a satanic outcast. Meanwhile, Jesse, who has an IQ of 72 (considered legally handicapped), is an acquaintance of Damien and gets confused by a 14-hour police interrogation, resulting in a false confession of the crimes. The police had basically tricked a mentally handicapped person into confessing that he, Damien and Jason (Damien’s best friend) had murdered the boys at Robin Hood Hills (the wooded area).

Then came the trial. This trial was a complete mockery of the concept of justice. Instead of presenting any form of actual evidence linking the teens to the scene of the crime, the prosecution simply pulled off an all out character assault on Damien. They used the fact that he knew who Alistair Crowley was, just the fact that he had heard of him, as part of their case against him. Lots of stuff like that. The fact that he reads Stephen King and listens to Metallica are among reasons for guilt. The closing statement of the prosecution said something like “Is there anything wrong with liking a few of those things? No. But all of them? Just think about it, ladies and gentlemen of the jury… Just think about it…” Damien says in the documentary “West Memphis is like the new Salem, they will burn anyone who appears different to their beliefs.” The only thing even resembling something close to a real case against the boys were three testimonies from some other teenagers, who said that Damien and Jason had straight up told them that they did it. These testimonies, as you find out years later, were completely fabricated…

Damien received the death penalty. Jason and Jesse got life in prison. No evidence was presented during the trail that actually, definitively linked them to the murders. They claimed innocence during their entire stay in prison. And 18 years after they were arrested, new DNA evidence definitively proved that they were *not* guilty of the crimes. They were set free last year.

And that’s the insanity of the entire case in a brief nutshell. The documentaries did nothing short of completely infuriating me. Everything about it *should* make you angry. The judge was constantly denying the three the chance to introduce new evidence, for almost 20 years. He denied bite mark evidence that would have negated the teens from guilt earlier on in the timeline. He even denied them the chance to introduce the new DNA evidence that eventually set them free, for seemingly no reason! The defense team had to take it to the Supreme Court to introduce the definitive evidence. It’s ridiculous! How does that judge still have a job?? He did nothing but screw over these kids for 20 years of their life, by allowing the shenanigans of this case to take place. He’s the definition of unfair incompetence.

There was jury tampering as well. Apparently a jury member was given Jesse’s false confession as evidence in Damien and Jason’s trial by one of the prosecutors, even though it wasn’t allowed to be used as evidence, because Jesse had been tried separately and refused to testify against the other two in their trial. There was also no blood at the crime scene, indicating that the children had been murdered elsewhere and moved to Robin Hood Hills after their death, which would destroy the defenses entire case about how the West Memphis Three murdered the boys on site. It’s all the most basic information given right to the jury, or more so, the jury had been presented NO information that could actually link these teens to the murders, yet they acted out of complete ignorant prejudice and sent these innocent guys away to rot in prison. You feel terrible for these parents that lost their children, genuinely awful for them, but it doesn’t take long for them to start spitting out ignorant hate based off misinformation. I’ve never been in their shoes (and hope to never be), but the whole town seemed to just be stuck in a fog of naive hatred. I guess it made everyone feel better about the situation. …oh, except for the West Memphis Three and their families…

I can’t tell if this all went down because of blind religious ignorance, or simply the fact that everyone involved were dumb, backwater southern folk of low intelligence. It all just felt like the trial in Idiocracy when Luke Wilson gets sent to prison for “talking like a fag”.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is probably the most well rounded of the three films (and as I said earlier, the one I watched first). It’s the only one that has a clear-cut beginning and end. I actually went into watching it without really knowing much about the subject, and Paradise Lost 3 fills you in on all of the important information you may have missed in the first two. In fact, maybe the first 30-40 minutes of Purgatory is a slick recap of the first two films. If I had to recommend anything from this series of documentaries, I would say to most definitely watch the third Paradise Lost film. It’s amazing.

After watching the third one, and going back to the first two, the first one is incredibly interesting because it gives you an extended take on the whole trial process. You get to see Damien’s testimony, and also get to see everyone else basically lie and smooth talk their way to a guilty verdict. It’s like being an invisible force watching the trail take place, and you want to scream at everyone for falling for all this bullshit, but no one can hear you. It’s really frustrating, haha. The second film provides some more information and a close look at some of the other town folk, but I don’t know if I learned much more than I did in the third one. The second film seemed like a two hour, really meaty DVD supplement.  Both the second and thrid films also offer up some possible new suspects, but it’s all speculation (though, the case against Terry Hobbs seems pretty convincing).

But again, I really recommend Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory to everyone who is interested by documentaries about crimes or the American justice system (though, I warn the squeamish; plenty of footage from the actual crime scene, which is very disturbing). This whole series has to go down as one of the greatest landmarks in documentary history. It serves as education, entertainment, and inspiration and hope for some kind of real life change. It’s a lesson that this kind of thing shouldn’t happen again.

There are some genius children out there. Don’t get me wrong. There are children out there that are smarter, and more successful than I’ll ever be (doesn’t take much). Really, kudos to them. I actually love hearing stories about child prodigies. It gives me hope that humanity isn’t turning into an Idiocracy. Their stories are inspirational. Their opinions though, are not. I don’t know what it is, but hearing a child talk about heavy subject matter like slut shaming, is just infuriating to me. The video I speak of went semi-viral on Youtube a while ago, and I just saw it now. This girl is clearly very intelligent. She speaks with an eloquence that I struggle to produce regularly (I’m down to 3 fucks and a fart joke for every 10 sentences now!). I actually agree with everything this girl has to say. Truly I do. Hearing her say it however, makes me want to puke blood. The sarcastic tones drive me nuts. If she hadn’t prefaced the video with the warning that she actually DOESN’T know everything, I probably would have been put into a rage coma.

Obviously there are exceptions to this ignorant opinion that I have. There are children out there that have gone through a hellish lives or experiences that I am sure that I have been totally unexposed to and could never understand. Hearing their opinions on life, expose us to things we may have never considered.  I am not targeting them. No, I am strictly speaking of middle class, suburban kids who lived sheltered lives. I include my younger self in that. That is just it. When you get older, you look back on all those opinions you once had as a kid. Heck, maybe you still hold those opinions. But they were so inexperienced. Not uninformed, but inexperienced. My girlfriend would tell me that you don’t have to experience something to understand it. To her I say SHADDUP YOU PROBABLY AREN’T READING THIS ANYWAYS. Every person grows up, and when they do they look back at their younger selves and laugh at how annoying they were, or how naïve. I’m sure the genius kids do too. Then again, some people never grow out of it and just think they were always perfect.

I feel like kids like this can really do good. I’m sure people her age could stand to listen to what she has to say. Maybe even kids a bit older. Clearly, children her age experience what she speaks of. If I was her parent I’d be proud of her. However, I’m not her parent, and having to listen to her as an adult, through The Huffington Post, is just annoying. I’m not related to this kid and I have no interest in what she has to say about our social problems. I READ THE ENQUIRER TO LEARN ABOUT THAT!

I have a DVD/Blu-ray collection that has basically spiraled out of control.  It’s now at over 1300 titles.  I end up buying a lot of bad movies, a lot of which I buy before ever seeing them first.  HOWEVER, I do not own a *single* movie that appears on the following list.  Not one.  But I’ve seen all of them multiple times.  More times then I’d care to admit.  That’s because all of these movies are seemingly on television at all hours of the day (at least it feels that way).  And for some reason, whenever I’m flipping through channels and I see that one of them is on, I almost always click on them and just start watching them for no good reason.  They’re awful movies, and I realize they’re awful movies, and I’m not even watching them ironically.  I’m legitimately entertained, even though it’s probably the 5th time I’ve seen them this month.  There is something magical about these films.  They have some unknown power that draws me in every time they are on TV…

15.  Barbershop

Why would anyone want to work at this place if it’s this chaotic every day?  This is one of those movies where I can’t tell if it wants to be a comedy or a drama, and I can’t tell if what Cedric the Entertainer is doing is horribly racist or not.  Also, why do they need so many employees?  There’s only like 2 or 3 customers in there at a time.  That’s probably why you’re going bankrupt, Ice Cube.  You’re paying like 5 extra dudes to just stand there and spit cliche dialogue.

14.  Lake Placid

It may be because I have the mind of an eight-year-old, but if I see that the stupid movie about the big alligator is on, I have to turn to it.

13.  8 Mile

I remember seeing this in theaters, I was in college, and I snuck a bottle of soda filled with rum into the movie and drunkenly laughed throughout the whole thing.  Now I watch this movie sober, and still sit through the whole thing.  Fundamentally, it’s about as by-the-books as these kind of movies get.  But watching people get humiliated in rap battles gets me every time.  Every single time…

12.  The Replacements

This movie has such a lighthearted dumbness to it that it’s hard for me to hate it.  It’s like the movie equivalent of that pinheaded cousin you don’t want to talk to at the family reunion, but he’s such a genuinely nice guy that you kinda have to go over and say hello and see what he’s up to, or you’ll feel bad.

11.  Couples Retreat

Did you know that this movie features an “action sequence” involving a Guitar Hero competition between two adult men?  I did.  Because I’ve seen it several times.  This one is one of the weirdest ones on the list, because every time I turn to it I fucking hate every second of it.  It saps the joy out of me.  Maybe I just like punishing myself?

10.  Any of the Final Destination Movies

I don’t even know which one I’m watching half the time, but I usually sit around and wait for teenagers to get maimed whenever one of these piles of crap is on.

9.  Big Daddy / Mr. Deeds

I grouped these together because they are basically the same movie to me.  Sandler essentially plays the same character.  Neither of these are close to being one of his worst movies, nor are they close to being his best.  They just kind of exist.  I think they are just above Little Nicky, and just below The Waterboy on Sandler’s timeline in the “Mediocre-Yet-Not-Quite-Terrible” era of his career.

8.  Drumline

I love it, Nick Cannon is the stereotypical hotshot who comes to this school and immediately feels like he deserves TOP DRUMLINE STATUS.  There’s the token white kid in the all black movie.  There’s the oddly comical feeling that marching band is more important at this college than actually getting an education.  There’s the evil other school with the flamboyant, James Brown-esk marching band director with the sparkly suit.  There’s – wait WHAT?!  The evil school has Petey Pablo singing along with their band?!  That’s not against the rules??  THE FUCK?!?!

I have never been flipping through my Comcast menu, seen this was on Country Music Television, and NOT turned to it…  Pauly Shore is like a shrill, screeching negative ion magnet, and I am the positive counterpart.  If Bio-Dome and Encino Man got played more on TV, I’m sure they would have made this list as well.

I’ve seen this movie like 7 times on TV, and I still don’t get why they needed to make super intelligent great white sharks…?  Why didn’t they use a less dangerous shark, like a nurse shark, or at least a smaller shark?  And if I may paraphrase Homer Simpson, “If they’re so smart, then how come they’re DEAD?”

Does it disturb you that I’ve seen Biker Boyz from start to finish three times?  It certainly disturbs me.

Ice Cube vs. Jon Voight vs. a big snake.  Seen this about 15 times.

The pinnacle of fast entertainment and furious filmmaking.

I’m just going to get these ones out of the way first, but there are a ton of them..

“Insert Subject” Boner- The fact that we do have “boner” in our name and do review movies there are SEVERAL “Insert Actor Name” Boner searches, in fact our 4th highest search hit OF ALL TIME FOR THIS SITE is “Ryan Reynolds Boner” THAT’S 4TH. Things got creepy when there was an inclusion “Asa Butterfield Boner” the fucking kid from Hugo. PEOPLE SEARCHED FOR BOY DICK AND FOUND OUR WEBSITE. Others included: Chris Evans Boner, Brad Pitt Boner, Ryan Gosling Boner, Christina Hendricks Boner (More like GIVES ME A BONER, RIGHT? RIGHT?). And of course Linsanity came here too “Jeremy Lin Boner”

But my favorite in this area were when it was “random object” Boner. Such As: Anime Boner, Animal Boner, Basketball Boner, Minotaur Boner, Motivation Boner, Soldier Boner (ALWAYS STANDING AT ATTENTION that was too fucking easy).

Sentences With “Boner” Involved Somehow- These were just searches that had boner somewhere in the sentence, like “How Big Is A Dinosaur’s Boner” (because that question MUST BE ANSWERED). There were AGAIN some horrible ones, like: “boner over 13 year old girl.” The lesson I took from a lot of these is “PEOPLE. ARE. FUCKED.”  But out of all of these insane searches, my favorite was FAR AND AWAY: “I have a kangaroo boner on my back” Let me repeat that because it bears repeating “I. HAVE. A. KANGAROO. BONER. ON. MY. BACK.”

The Completely Random- And some weren’t horrible perverts looking for various boners. These were, as the title suggests, just completely random. I know one was from me making a comment on Scott’s “Rise of The Planet of The Apes” review, where I made a crack about a drinking game that would get any person that does it killed, that’s where “rise of the planet of the apes drinking game” came from (which garnered 4 hits. That many people looking to die? Probably more…).

Others I just could not track down (or in most cases didn’t try in the least) the reason that would take someone here. They included: Saddest Dog In The World, Hot Tits (I guess that could be a variety of posts), Bruce Springsteen Sister (what?), Sexy Harry Potter Costume, (I think I remember this one being a picture but whatever), Cowgirl, Creepy Gif, Sheen and I’d Go Back, Dude Hangs Dong (a personal fav, and I’m guessing had something to do with the movie Shame, actually LOTS of Fassbender boner variations), Minotaur Cock, Girl From Little Fockers Her Butt When In Pit (obviously from the movie review but WTF?), Nice Guys Don’t Fuck, and one that was LITERALLY IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE. I think it was in Russian but I honestly don’t know. I couldn’t copy and past it for some reason.

The cool thing (IMO) was that while trying to figure out which ones they were related to it made me realize we (or Scott, and Keith) have posted so much in this year. That it all kinda gets lost in the shuffle. There has been almost 150 posts, that’s a lot of content (especially for a website no one reads). It was also a fun trip down memory lane (OR LAME HARF HARF). But really it was kinda nice, so here’s to another year, and to more posting from me, Scott and Keith (mainly Scott) can’t do this all themselves. (I should probably note that I haven’t mentioned Lai but not out of spite, him and I combined have probably posted like 15 posts, so I’m lumping him in with me)

Sure, there are manga and anime that have become somewhat mainstream in America that try and tackle other social issues in Japan such as seclusion, and crime. These manga though are usually so outlandishly absurd, that they are nearly impossible to follow. They become weird for the sake of weird. They are usually deemed “psychological” but really, its just disjointed, bad story telling. I don’t know how many manga I’ve read and anime I’ve seen where you wait for the ending to explain everything, only to get some utterly nonsensical garbage that just makes you more confused than before.

None of this portrays Japan accurately. It is so deep into fantasy that any logical person should, and would categorize it as such. That doesn’t seem to happen though as I am constantly asked incredibly dumb questions by people about Japan. One moron, actually asked me if it was common to see people in Japan with blue hair. The answer is no, shitbird.

I never saw anyone resembling this girl walking down the street. I would have liked to though.

The popularization of Japanese media in America has indeed been a double edged sword; although it has been more good than bad. I feel that it is really about time though, for manga’s popularity to “mature” in America. There is manga out there that could easily be compared to some of the great graphic novels of the West. Gritty and poignant stuff that actually gives you an inner view to Japanese society. I feel like people want to know this stuff, but get stuck on their old wacky Japanese standbys. Well that’s all well and good, but when you go to Japan and act like a total jamoke, THAT’S WHEN YOU MAKE ALL US NORMAL PEOPLE LOOK BAD. Which is why I basically became a self-hating American while living in Japan, and avoided most of my kind like the plague.

Hey look, it's every Japanese grandfather ever! Dat's so racist. It's actually Yoshihiro Tetsumi

I’ll get back to the point. Back in the early days of manga, after Tezuka Osamu had already started revolutionizing manga, another young artist was just starting as well. He idolized Tezuka, and became semi close to him, since they both lived in close proximity to each other. His name was and is Yoshihiro Tetsumi. He is actually still alive and making manga to this day. Yoshihiro Tetsumi was convinced that manga could be something more than it was. Manga at that time, was still mostly in comic strip form, but slowly changing to the manga we have today. Heavily influenced by Tezuka’s movie motion techniques, Yoshihiro wanted the images to deliver the message rather than just the words. Indeed, one of his criticisms (and mine) of American comics, was that they were way too wordy and that they broke up the flow. Some of Yoshihiro’s stories sparingly use words, but rather let the pictures do the talking. He called this form of manga, Gekiga 劇画. The first character meaning, drama, and the second meaning picture (Manga is 漫画. It shares the same second character. The first is sort of archaic and means whimsy or whimsical). A better translation for gekiga, though, would be graphic novel. Yoshihiro wanted to make comics of a more serious nature, geared towards adults, and that told more complex stories (not to say that Tezuka Osamu’s manga was not complex or meant only for children).

Yoshihiro’s other major influence, aside from Tezuka Osamu, was his love of the cinema and “Hard Boiled” crime novels. You see this influence in his story telling. Most of it is very gritty. It feels dirty, rough. Unlike Tezuka Osamu’s style, which uses rather cartoony looking characters, Yoshihiro Tetsumi’s style has more of an adult quality to it. Although his characters are not as detailed as say Berserk‘s characters, they fit well into the world that Yoshihiro is trying to show. I really enjoy just looking at the backgrounds of his stories, which are much more detailed. While reading Yoshihiro Tetsumi’s manga, I can really feel myself in Tokyo once again. He captures the essence of Tokyo. Tokyo, like all cities, of course has a darker side. This side is best portrayed in his short stories contained in The Push Man and Other Stories, and Abandon The Old in Tokyo. The stories contained in these compilations, range from tragic, to weird and everything in between. The stories are sometimes dramatic, but definitely feel at home in Tokyo. What is strangest though, is that it’s these qualities of Tokyo that you sometimes end up missing. It is what makes the city interesting. All the stories happening in that dense city, all the time. It is kind of why I never really felt lonely there (mostly). There were always things happening around me at all times. I never felt alone really, because I could go out and interact with people when I wanted to. And when I didn’t want to, I knew I’d be left alone and everyone would go about their business in a typical Tokyo orderly fashion.

Yoshihiro Tetsumi’s magnum opus (I’m getting grandiose), would have to be his 800 page plus mammoth memoir, A Drifting Life. It focuses on how Yoshihiro came to be a professional manga artist, following him from right after the war when he was a kid and up through the 1960′s. He was successful at an early age, but he wasn’t without his setbacks. It was really interesting to see how cutthroat manga was back when it was becoming big. I really enjoyed reading about how the manga community interacted with one another. It was like a large dysfunctional family. Yoshihiro Tetsumi, wrote most of his most famous works 40 years ago but they still easily remain relevant. So once again I say to you otaku, fan boy, dicks out there. Get your heads out of your asses and read something worth reading.

The main star of this documentary is Ameena Matthews. Ameena Matthews is somewhat of a celebrity in Englewood.  Her father was the notorious gang leader Jeff Fort.  This guy was like the Al Capone of the 70s and 80s.  He was such a large name in the Chicago crime world, that he actually ended up going to jail, not because he was a gang leader, but because he was conspiring with Libyan terrorists.  Ameena, not being a slouch herself, was a gang enforcer growing up. She lived up to her name but after being shot, she changed her ways and set out to end bloodshed in her town.

What makes Interrupters so effective at what they do, is partially to do with the fact that they were all once gang members and criminals themselves.  They know the street, and the people on the street know them.  It is this mutual respect that allows for these people to intercede fights without themselves becoming victims of the violence themselves (usually).

The movie so far has only had limited screenings across America.  I was lucky enough to actually watch the movie downtown a 2 months ago.  It was hosted by WBEZ, and afterward Ameena Matthews along with a few other people, spoke about the film and the state of Englewood today.  I must say, Ameena Matthews is as intimidating in person, as she was on screen. Perhaps even more so. I am not really into celebrities and I don’t think I would be excited to see one, but I was super excited to see her. I also find her super attractive so that was part of it.

So for people in Chicago, it will be on Frontline tonight at 8 o’clock. It really is worth watching.  It is weird seeing shows like this.  It makes it feel like there are war zones just right next door. I think it is important that we remember that. The problems in poor neighborhoods like Englewood seem daunting and insurmountable.  However, people like Ameena are up to the task, and they are making a difference.

I went to a screening of all the Academy Award nominated short films over the weekend. It was a great showcase of different animation styles and storytelling. I think I’m going to have to start doing this every year. Here’s a rundown of the cool little films (none of which were more than 15 minutes) that I saw:

Dimanche / Sunday

Well, I actually didn’t like this first one very much. It was about a kid who has a routine every Sunday, and starts to daydream things to make it more interesting. But it had a very slow pace for a 10 minute film, and the intentionally sloppy hand drawn style grew tiresome to me after a while. It just kind of started and ended on dull notes. Only slightly amusing.

Dimanche / Sunday (trailer) from doiion on Vimeo.

A Morning Stroll

I liked this one a lot. Very short, very simple absurdist concept, and very funny. It was about a similar encounter with a chicken walking down the street on three separate occasions, each occasion using a different animation style. I don’t think it has a chance of winning the award, but it’s really cool that it even got nominated. (it DID however, just win the Short Animated Film BAFTA Award last night…! So who knows?!)

A MORNING STROLL ( Trailer) from STUDIO AKA on Vimeo.

Wild Life

This one was just awesome. All animated with what appears to be a hand painted style, it’s the story of an English slacker who moves to the Canadian wilderness with dreams of becoming a rancher. He doesn’t quite live up to expectations, but comically (at least at first) over exaggerates his situation to his parents via letters he writes back to England (which makes up the narration of the film). It’s funny, striking, and ultimately depressing. This was my favorite of all the short animated films I saw.

(I couldn’t find a working video of it, so a picture will have to suffice)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Awesome computer animated short about a character who, in the midst of writing a book, gets swept up in a storm (which featured a great action sequence), and lands in a colorful world where books can fly. But he is incapable of flying, as he has lost the words to the book he was writing in the storm. So he dedicates his life to helping others find books in this new land. This was probably the most well rounded of all the films. Very imaginative ideas and very clean and fluid animation. It definitely has a feeling of wonder, and best of all, kind of leaves you with a sweet feeling by the end. It’s the best propaganda for getting people to read books that I’ve seen in a long time.

You can actually see the ENTIRE film right here on Vimeo, check it out!

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

La Luna

This was Pixar’s contribution to the showcase. Overall, it was decent. It’s probably best not to really spoil anything about the story. I think the best word to describe it is… cute. It’s very cute. It has a cool ending as well. It would have been nice to start with this one, as it felt less spectacular when it followed the book one.

I’d put my money on The Flying Books to win the award. It’s got spectacle, good animation, and a good message/story. I liked Wild Life a little better, but I think it might be too abstract to win. La Luna was a brief, cute concept, with pretty animation. A Morning Stroll is probably too “pop culturey” to win the Oscar, but it was pretty funny. Demanche better not win.

They were also kind enough to play some honorable mentions at the showcase:

Skylight

This was a 5 minute faux public service announcement for damaging the ozone layer, and it was hilarious. 10x better than Demanche.

http://www.skylight-short.com/

Hybrid Union

Interesting concept about old resources vs self sustainable ones, using racing robots in a desert as examples.  It was OK.

http://www.thehybridunion.com/HybridUnion.html

Amazonia

I actually found this one kind of annoying. And it had a terrible ending. This was the only one I didn’t like more than Dimanche.

http://www.amazoniamovie.com/

Nullarbor

Action film about two guys having a conflict while driving on Australia’s longest open stretch of road. It didn’t have the greatest animation style in the world, but that didn’t take away from the fact that it was fun!

http://www.nullarborshortfilm.com/

Could this be? 4 Posts in a row without Scott? Has this happened before? Is this even a good thing? What’s that? I’m supposed to be writing a review about Fucked Up’s Hardcore/Punk Opera “David Comes to Life”? Yea I got that, its after the jump. (INSIDER TERMS) When I first think of “Hardcore” music I think of the word RAWR like that’s all I can understand or hear. So honestly I’m not even the biggest fan of this side of the “Punk” Genre. But when I heard about this album and saw all the rave reviews it was actually getting. I had to give it a listen and wouldn’t you know it these bastards pulled it off. (I GUESS I should explain that I’ll be splitting this review into 2 parts the story itself and the album.)

In the 80 minutes of “David Comes to Life”, Fucked Up actually tells a story about a man who has to battle not only the loss of the love of his life but also the narrator of the story who isn’t who he seems. In the 4 Acts you meet 4 characters, David, Octavio St. Laurent who is the narrator, Vivian David’s Ex, and Veronica who is the love interest.

Just from the very beginning I was taken aback, because instead of being hit in the face with yelling and screaming like I expected, it starts with a very cool sounding instrumental track. It kind of sets the tone for the multi-layered guitars you will hear throughout the entire album. And with the 2nd track “Queen of Hearts,” which is the most lighthearted and poppy of the entire album, we find out how Veronica and David meet. David is a factory worker in England in the late 1970s who is stuck in a rut and not thinking anything will ever change. Until he walks in to work one day and there is a protester who hands him a flyer that protester is Veronica and both of their lives change forever.

From that point on the story covers the tragedy of David losing Veronica (she dies but it’s not explained why until near the very end of the album). And during this loss David has to deal with the narrator who basically beats down on him until its revealed by his ex-girlfriend Vivian that the narrator is the one pulling the strings. AND THEN THINGS GET META (a phrase I really hate using but its true in this sense) Because now David realizes he is in some sort of play and has no control over the plot. The narrator is also blind to this as he sees himself as basically a god-like figure because whatever he says happens.

From there the two wrestle for control of the plot as David tries to break free of the narrators grasp to live out his own life. When it turns out that’s impossible David is near giving in until Vivian tells him that it was the Narrator who was the one who got Veronica killed. He was cast as the villain of this play and is just as much not in control of the plot as David is (I told you META).

And from there the story builds to the second to last track “One More Night” where David finally figures it all out and finally realizes that even though his time with Veronica was cut-short his life is better for knowing her (he’s visited by her ghost because what kind of opera or play would this be without something like that). And everything is resolved in the last track where he is older, wiser and ready to start over. And as he goes to start over, the CD ends with the same instrumental that opened it like the play itself is restarting (which I thought was pretty neat but I’m a sucker for shit like that).

All in all I really dug the story itself my only gripe was the singer plays all of the parts except Veronica, that’s sung by a female singer. The only reason i was bothered by this is it tends to get a little confusing about who is saying what basically. But that’s remedied by just looking at the lyrics (which like any opera or play is told from that specific persons perspective, its not a book so nothing is spelled out for you).

And I’m sure there are like a million different meanings to this story either as a critique of society or some kind of political statement but I just dug the story on a surface level. I mean if there is that’s cool too.

This being my first introduction to the band I can’t exactly compare this to any of their other albums, so I won’t be saying crap like “oh they have really grown as musicians.” All I know is from front to back the music is great, I’m more into the uptempo of punk music anyway this is just a little harder. The vocals took me some time to get used to but by the end of the CD it was yelling along with it.

And since I know that NO ONE who writes for this blog will like this album I did this for selfish reasons (specifically, actually post something that doesn’t have something to do with ants). But dammit this album is damn good, it rocks, has a cool story behind it and as far as the punk genre is concerned its damn ballsy.

9.0 out of 10 (I wanted to make small little pictures of myself and go “this gets 4.5 Conmans out of 5!” but i decided to just stick with the standard scoring AH FUCK IT:

GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!