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In Reply to: Top 10 Science Fiction Movies of the 1990’s posted by Scott on February 14, 2000 at 10:04:33:
"Spawn" which should've been called "yawn". The script & plot were as absurdly lacking thought as "Blade". Both held great promise in their inspired concepts died a miserable 2 some odd hour death.& "5th Element" would've been fun & humous save that Chris Tucker character. His blattent retardation plagued the film's entirety. Can we have a version that digitally removes this parasitic schuck? With him there it's just another "Hudson Hawk".
Never saw & can't comment on ...
6. Patlabor - the Movie (animie, even better than The Ghost in the Shell)
7. Nemesis
8. Dark CityWhat in blazes is wrong with "Demolition Man" & "Total Recall" that have maintained their "Matrix" type luster over time. It housed entegrity through script & plot, not resting on FX. It kept humor imagination & mostly humanity as foremost component to defend its believability. Plus, "Total Recall" still left you wondering whether it was a dream or not. GREAT JOB as far as I'm concerned. & Dennis Leary's schtick was perfectly set in "Demolition Man". His only great role to date.
Didn't much care for the theatrial release of Spawn but the 3 disk animated series was pretty well. Dark City is also good... Hitchcock meets the Twilight Zone sort of thing. Patlabor is good (also like Ghost in the Shell full subbed version of Armitage III (only available on VHS), AD Police Force, Serial Expriment Lain, Cyber City Oedo, Bubblegum Crisis, Record of the Lodoss War, Iria:Zeiram, Ninja Scroll, Tenchi Muyo OVA, Fushigi Yushi, Mononoke Hime, etc... I'll quit before I get to the cute stuff like Nuku Nuku). 5th Element was a fun romp and good surround effects (yeah the bad guy and the crap with the oil spots on the forehead was really barfy-corny but other things like the opera scene make up for it). Liked Total Recall too. Also Deep Impact (too many stupid little things kept Armageddon from making my list, but the FX were good, such as they were)
Which ones aren't done in the Pokeman style animation that seems so prevalent in Japanese Anime? I like the animation styles of Batman & Spawn.
What do you mean Poke'mon style? That's a kid's anime. Try Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Ninja Scroll, & AD Police. Lodoss War is a bit like King Arthur. Serial Experiment Lain has characters with big eyes (if that is what you meant... never watched Poke'mon), but it is one mighty weird flick. Mononoke Hime is good too (does have a few "cutsie" spots)... Disney released it here as "Princess Mononoke" and it came out pretty good (Japanese studio wouldn't let them release it here if they attempted to alter it... ie removing the lepers and prostitutes and people getting their heads chopped off). Look for the stuff they don't show on TV.... everything from historical (Barefoot Gen) to goofy comedy in cutsie style (Ranma) to space adventure (Macross Plus), religious overtones (Evangelion), whacked out futuristic comedy (Tenchi OVA's... watch subtitled) to X-rated stuff (about as boring as our stuff and too bizzare but at least has a plot)to police shows. Anime comes in all styles, we just normally only get to see the kiddie shows (and even they are often edited... Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball for example).
I've noticed that a lot of Japanese animation in the video stores choose to draw in that wierd cupidoll fashion. I find that particular oriental anime style distracting from the story. I was hoping that by specifying the artistic styles I admire, I would've been much more easily understood. BTW, in addition to SPAWN & BATMAN animation, I also enjoy the Disney & WB computer assisted 3-d sketched scenes. Hope this helps...
Well,the first ones I listed were drawn in the style you said you liked... actually all of the ones I mentioned are, except Ranma 1/2, which is supposed to be totally zaney with people changing to animals and back while grandpa runs about stealing women's underwear (kind of a cute old codger actually... sorta like monty python meets around the world in 80 days type of humor). Check the reviews on http://www.animeondvd.com/ for DVDs (also region 2 imports) and http://www.asu.edu/studentprgms/orgs/them/Anime/Reviews/
for general reviews of things on tape, dvd and LD.
I would suggest you start with Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the Shell since they are easily available on DVD, or if you're still on tape, AD Police, Patlabor, Macross Plus OVA... oh throw in Vampire Princes Miyu. Lots of good stuff (Spawn is drawn in anime style... just not the kiddie or cute super-deformed style). Personally, I like Iria:Zeiram... pretty strange planets but a nice long adventure story.
any done in a 'Heavy Metal' style?
Sure... Vampire Hunter D comes to mind, Odin (reminds me of some of the space stuff in Heavy Metal), Macross Plus, Princess Mononoke (parts have the atmosphere of some of Heavy Metal, especially the battle scenes, though it takes place in Japan circa 1300). Legend of Lemnear is a little like the part of HM in the future where the woman with the sword goes hacking things up...so are parts of Lodoss Wars. Really hard to classify some of them as we have so few equivalents... Midnight Panther for example has a Middle Ages European feel and is about a group of female assasins who like to have a litte romantic tryst while offing their victims... parts are drawn HM style, yet there is also an old crone who seems to be drawn for comic effect (not a super-deformed or cutesy character, but impossilby small, wrinkled and feisty). Then you've got MD Geist...a genetically engineered soldier who is pretty much a one man army... a rather grim ruthless tale. Historical stuff like Barefoot Gen, which is a realistic biography of a little boy who watches most of his family burn and tries to take care of his mother and baby after the Hiroshima bombing (Grave of Fireflies is similar). Contact a local anime club and they should be able to steer you in the right direction according to your tastes since there are about as many styles of anime as there are Hollywood movies (actually, anime is part of the Japanese movie industry, only they don't have to pay for over-priced actors and insanely expensive FX if they can draw it... kiddie cartoons, as we think of animation, is just a small part of the industry)
... how many anime's do you own?
Well, let me fire up my spread sheet and see. Um, 70 on DVD (that's counting multidisk sets like Fushigi Yugi, Bubblegum Crisis or Tenchi Muyo OVA's as one item and things like the 4 separate disks of Serial experiment Lain as 4 items so that's just a rough figure). Also got about a dozen on VHS, but don't buy tapes anymore. Kinda lucky actually... I work with a guy who is such an otaku that he's got about a 3-4 foot stack of LD's he's imported and uses scrips and a computer gen-lock to create his own subtitles on his wide-screen... that's how I got hooked on this stuff and saw Mononoke Hime before Disney approached Ghibli Studios about doing an English dubbed American release. So, I've seen a few things you can't get, unless you want to import and know Japanese (I didn't mention anything you can't order from Amazon, DVD express or http://www.animenation.com/ ) If you do know Japanese then you can get some fun stuff here: http://www.amy.hi-ho.ne.jp/jigs/index.html (they're still heavy into LD over there though and their DVDs may be coded to region 2... they don't use PAL like Europe though). You might check some of your local comic book shops (they sometimes carry manga translations and so may also become meeting places for anime clubs. Universities also sometimes have active clubs).
where does he get the usual LDs?
Don't know... seems he only buys regular movies on DVD (wouldn't mind getting a "lightly" used LD player myself if I could find a place where I could pick them up cheap like used LP's)
I'm on the other side of the coin. Actually this genre may make me buy a DVD player. I was hoping to hold out until DADs (audio DVD) were out.
Wow Pam that's plenty! I was really into it, more from a standpoint of looking at Japanese Manga as an art form. But, moving to Japan I'm drowned by all of it now, and plus my Nihongo (Japanese language)isn't up to par to constantly rent. I still in someway follow it, but only the animation that's new and breathtaking. I will watch an anime if the story is good also. It's funny how in America in my design college,it was hip to keep up with the latest Japanese anime, but in Japan, one is considered an Otaku...
Yoroshiku o-negai shimasu Joven samaMy nihongo isn't even kindergarten level yet, but my tomodachi (friends) help (and I help them learn English better, though the more we talk and exchange tapes the worse my English gets... love the language but am starting to think with joshi & words like atashi, nashi, ninjin, neko etc., leaving out articles and pronouns and muttering things like "ara ma'" I think we have created a new language that nobody else understands... would you believe Englanese or Janglish? (^o^)...picking up the hiragina and katakana but don't know if I'll ever manage the kanji).
Ha ha, I bet you are! My friend, Aiko, says her 6 year-old has her house so full of pocket monsters (Poke'mon) that she's about ready to tear her hair out! Perhaps you can keep us informed of new and breathtaking titles to watch for (Heck, I'm still waiting for a dvd version of Maison Ikkoku!)
Tee-hee, movies must be strange too... we steal YoJimbo and turn it into "A Fist Full of Dollars", and then it comes back over there under the title "A Bodygaurd in the Wild" Amazing!
dewa mata ne
Hagi-me-mashite Pamchan,Watackshi wa...that's where my nihongo usually ends. After being here for a year plus, my nihongo is up to slang level. I guess the shorter the word the easier it is to remember. Just the business nihongo is really tough and very proper. There's a phone on my desk I'll never answer it because they don't realise there's a gaigin on the other end and they'll speak so fast. But, with co-workers we reached common ground as we "oh-no" speak Japan-glish. I catch my self speaking broken english but sometimes there's no other way to explain things with my limited nihongo skills.
You're right about Poke'mon, every kid wants it. I send alot of stuff back to the niece and nephew in the states.I've lost track of what's new and the latest in Japanimation and I'll get back to you on the latest title I bought which was last year. It has some good 2D-3D intergration, but not as close as Masumiro Shirow's work in "Ghost in the Shell's video shorts" in the made to Playstation videogame. I'm planning on buying SONY's Playstation II which is being released here next month. It's a good buy as I can now watch, buy/rent Region 2 coded DVDs on it also.
Ja attode asylum shimasu..
Joven
Wa! Nani(*.*)... how can you call me "little" when I'm almost 50 years old? (^o^)
Yeah, they seem to care a lot about formality as well as trading business cards and all. So, do they call you "san" at the office? (books say this is like Mr/Ms etc. but really less formal... more like us using first names... dono or sama is more like Mr/Ms). You may enjoy Keichiro's home page http://home.att.net/~keiichiro/ for a perspective from the other side of the coin.Playstation eh? Maybe not video/audiophile but at least you can play games when there's nothing worth watching (maybe some of those dating games that seem popular over there (~_^) )
Summimasen Pamsan,
Gomen ne, I was told that adding "chan" was for indearment. I just add that to all the names of my co-workers since everyone's so nice.
They add the "san" and "kun" at the office. But the funny thing is that everyone either calls me by my first or last name. Since my business card is in nihongo on one side and english on the other with the name sequence vice-versa on both sides they just add san to which ever name. I don't mind, but I haven't been called by both names so much since High School.The Sony Playstation is going to be fun. But for a popular movie to show up on Region 2 DVD a will take a looooong time. Let's say about average 3 to 6 months after being released in the states to appear in theaters here, then the average wait from there to see it on DVD. My friends like watching the Region 1 DVDs that I get before the movies are released here, but they struggle with the english. From watching tons of Japanimation throughout the years without sub-titles or english dub, I can say sub-titles are a blessing, sometimes not perfect but better than nothing.
The TV shows here...hmmmm...the commercials...(~_^) I better stop here.
I'm going to check out Tokyo's MacWorld expo today. Nothing really new but I get to leave work early here on a nice, and cold Friday.
Ja ne
Joven
Quite okay. Tee-hee, I know, also used to make things like Wan-chan which is sort of an affectionate form of "doggie". I just get a real kick out of their contractions like "shuwa-chan" (Calling Arnold Schwarzenegger "little" is just a hoot (^o^)). Anyway, I just had to give you some o-kuso about it (flashed on Tenchi OVA's where Washu tells Ayeka to call her "Little Washu" and Ayeka gets this amazed, irate, amused and confused look and mutters "how can I call her little when she's 20,000 years old!".... a bit of a Peter Pan, that Washu!). Well, I understand the confusion... we print other Asian names like Ho Chi Min and Mao Tse-tung with family name first and given name second, yet we print Japanese names given then family, while they still do it the Chinese way... drives me nuts figuring out which name is which when you see it both ways... maybe they have the same problem with yours? And, they'll often just pick a piece of a long name (I get called Pamu-san). Someone started a trend of Americanizing Japanese names and its just led to some confusion. Ha ha, that's as bad as me watching The Spanish channel when I don't understand a word of it... I do turn off subtitles occasionally just to see how many words I can pick out, but then I'm one of those crazy types that would probably go wandering off into the boonies over there, figuring that hunger and constantly getting lost is a motivational opportunity to pick up the language faster :-)Ah, well, I watch some Japanese shows, news and commercials... Nani... Hentai desu yo! (^o^) Ah well, have fun
I wish you were around the corner so I could rent them from you.
Yes, they do draw that way. It's a certain cute style that helps with the moment. However, it does goes over board when the whole anime is like that, as Gundam and many other characters are drawn like this for the younger market.The Batman animation series was drawn extremely well. Its use of shades and shadows creates a really dark mood. The angles of the shots also did wonders for the series as well besides the strong story telling. It shows that you don't have to use the latest techniques to have a good cartoon series.
The 3D intergration into animation is getting there with the WB and Fox base cartoons. Many of the cartoon/animations are out sourced to animation firms outside the United States. They are okay and it's what you expect from a daily to weekly animation series budget.
There's a new series in Japan that uses the latest 3D CGI in thier animation. I don't remember the title offhand but the 3D and normal cel animation blend effortlessly as the color palette and lighting are matched perfectly.Macross Plus and Ghost in the Shell implimented CGI to good effect and Anastasia use CGI to make the it's animation lifelike. However, these films are pretty dated now and makes you wonder when the next animation masterpiece will come along.
The 3D intergration into animation is getting there with the WB and Fox base cartoons. Many of the cartoon/animations are out sourced to animation firms outside the United States. They are okay and it's what you expect from a daily to weekly animation series budget. There's a new series in Japan that uses the latest 3D CGI in thier animation. I don't remember the title offhand but the 3D and normal cel animation blend effortlessly as the color palette and lighting are matched perfectly.I didn't find the combination very integrated myself. That's why I stipulated it w/o CGI. To me at least, it makes the cartoons look as flat as south park juxaposed over the CGI. Give me Tazan or give me Transformers, not both.
my $.02
Oh, you mean things like Reboot and some of those WB monster cartoons you see on tv? I know what you mean... those things are GHASTLY IMHO (and that's an understatement). Comparing them with Ghost in the Shell is like comparing a skateboard to a Lamborghini.
"Armageddon" made it for me because of Liz & Bruce interplay, but unlike most of the world I saw its director's cut before I ever saw "Deep Impact".
One thing Mart - while I agree 100% as far as your reaction to 5th Element was concerned, I must ask you whether you have tried to view the movie a second time. I hated the character in question the first time since he seemed to be intruding into the enjoyment of the movie but the second and third time I watched it (third time was just to try new HT system), I think that I found him alrigh, and, on a couple of occassions, I even found him funny. Either I am subconsiously excluding him and his voice when I watch or i genuinely find some redeeming quality in his character. I am curious whether you would feel that way on a second screening.Of course, first screenings are what I usually judge a movie.
Actually saw it repeetedly on cable & turned the channel whenever Chris showed up. It became an instinctive repulsion.
Well not everyone has the refined taste and cultivated sensibilities to appreciate Spawn (!) but I happen to love the movie - so that's why it's at the top of my list. I found the concept and characters to be fresh and original, the plot tightly scripted and the special effects inspired (dug the music too!). In a decade filled with "Part II" retreads this movie stood out like a diamond in a dungheap. I agree that it's probably too over-the-top for most tastes, but hey - it works for me. Go Spawny, go Spawny!!!I agree completely with your criticism of the Chris Tucker character in Fifth Element, but I loved the set design (having grown up on Heavy Metal magazine and the art of Jean Giraud/Mobeius - I've still got every issue published for the magazine's first seven years). The story holds up quite well and the CGI effects are very well done. All in all, a very good SF effort in a very dismal decade.
"Nemesis" is a fairly low-budget cyberpunk SF thriller directed by Albert Pyun that most people quite frankly can't stand. As with many of the films directed by Pyun, all of the first unit sequences are outstanding and the second unit sequences are horrible (the second unit sequences are "filler" shot on a shoestring and used to pad out the movie to acceptable release length after the budget runs dry). Even with the filler sequences though, Nemesis is a terrific example of pure cyberpunk in the Willim Gibson mold and much, much better than "Strange Days" which probably cost at least 20 times as much.
"Patlabor" is a rather inaccesable bit of Japanese anime that has relatively little action but instead focuses on character development - although the action that the movie does have is spectacular. Some of the very best SF of all time came out of 90's anime - and Patlabor is at the top of the heap. Well worth checking out if you can find a copy (not easy).
As for Demolition Man and Total Recall - well, my mama always taught me that if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Them's my choices and I'm a-stickin' to 'em.
Scott
John Leguizamo destroyed SPAWN. He made his demon seem homosexual. It was hard to find him anything but obnoxious, even when he was shooting for gross/intimidating. I don't know his personal perforance (& really couldn't care less), but to render a patheticly gender confused character as a demon clown (reminded me of that notorious pediphile that was executed). Just nuke the dude & move on to something interesting. If he had to pattern someone, he should've considered a Jack Nickolson (cross between "Batman" & "Shining").And shallow script was thinner than 2D. It made think fondly of 50s horror films (including the digital monster). Afterall, there was plenty of time to do just about anything between steps along the so-called plot's regression. It was a great concept that looked like it died in committee ... one of those too many chiefs phenomena.
> > > John Leguizamo destroyed SPAWN. He made his demon seem homosexual < < <Uh..... I think you might be bringing some of your own baggage to the table here.
And even if he *was* a gay demon - so what? What's wrong with that?
PS - Relax, it's only a movie.
reread, I explained the problem thoroughly unless your baggage prevented you from understanding the 1st time.
Have you ever played tennis with a crappy partner? It's no fun at all. You hit the ball, then wait for the return that never comes. Kind of like this thread.Well, time to make the donuts.
Scott
I thought Leary was pretty good as the bad gang leader in the movie where
Emilo Esteves and pals get sidetracked into a high-crime area of LA on their way to a football game, forget the name of that flick. - AH
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