Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

For the earliest Studio Ghibli movie to my knowledge, this is a heck of a way to begin.

Nausicaa is a very good movie, a truly excellent beginning to a world renowned studio that really set the mark in terms of story, character, and overall quality for decades to come. Original to boot as well, taking place on a world slowly being infected by a poisonous forest our young Princess Nausicaa lives her life trying to save as many people as she can and is a pacifist. But trouble brews beyond the forest as several different warring kingdoms comes to her peaceful valley and Nausicaa tries to resolve the issues peacefully before her people are utterly destroyed. Now this is such an interesting movie from every conceivable aspect. The designs are incredible for this world, I like the fact that they have airplanes but the design is not so much based on birds but more insects because that's the primary source of life beyond people, that alone is fascinating to warrant lengthy discussions but there's so much more. There's tons of different design origins, I like how each kingdom has a look, one has medieval knights with guns and others look like sand nomads that's really cool! But I can safely say in such a weird fantasy world such as this our main character is what keeps us in the movie, you want to see her win, you want to see how she can overcome these odds, and no small part of that can be contributed to Alison Lohman she is absolutely fantastic! Some people again like San says she's whiny and cries at the drop of a hat, but you know as a woman that takes action as much as she does, always has a plan, is respected and treasured in her kingdom far more than anybody, I have to take those claims with a grain of salt. I would follow her until the end, into the very fires of Mordor itself, she's really fantastic! And her supporting cast adds a lot, it gets you involved and connected to this world. One of her close friends is a swordmaster played by Patrick 'The Professor' Stewart, how can you not like that?? And this guy, who is like this smarmy, slimy, underling to a queen of another kingdom may just be my favorite character! And of course he's voiced by Chris Sarandon, he was like born for such roles like this movie and The Princess Bride, everytime he was on screen my joy and love for this character grew and grew, he just friggin' cracked me up everytime! Shia LaBeouf is in this movie, and he ain't actually that bad, he does quite well in the movie. I mean really the movie can do no wrong, you get tidbits of the history of this world and it does help acclimate us and you don't even really mind because the movie doesn't need that much context. Everything is either explained or is recognizable to the viewer, so you're not lost and desperately trying to get any form of bearings. And with a movie about a princess that flies on a hang glider trying to save her kingdom from rage filled bugs and hostile weirdos in costumes, I can safely say good job!

Oh my God this took forever to find though, Studio Ghibli or perhaps Disney does not want you to rent this movie at all. They want all your money's, but through perseverance and sevral ibuprofen I did manage to find this on a anime website. You can find it easily too if you just ditch the new browsing options and go back to good old Internet Explorer. Because if life has taught me anything it's that older always has the edge over the new.

Pulp Fiction

Still my favorite Tarantino movie.

Pulp Fiction is a fantastic movie by Quentin Tarantino, combining very film noir-esque storytelling with a galleon of star power behind it. I mean we got Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and of course...Christopher Walken. Oh come on, how can you turn it down now? The plot is...a bit confusing cause you see, it is told out of sequence. No lineart strict progression from start to finish you really have to piece this puzzle together which is why I call it sort of a film noir but it is not a central character in the movie, it's you. You are present for all events and you try and figure out what sequence it went down in. And the plot itself is crazy and hell I don't even think I could recount it without giving something away but it revolves around quite a crew of characters, with a hitman and his partner, a mob boss and his wife, a boxer too, the Professor and Mary Ann, you get the picture. Still awesome and very quotable dialogue, good sense of humor but can still do tension filled scenes, memorable characters, and all around just a great film. Tarantino fan or not, watch this movie if you haven't already you will enjoy it.

And thus tomorrow we will look into more of a comic book film noir, in black and white and stylized like hell. Can't freaking wait man.

Batman & Robin

This is it. This is my last review. I am about to lose all credibility as a critic. It's the end.

Batman & Robin is a very campy throwback to the Adam West series, with a ludicrous plot, cartoon action, puns galore, and resulted in the death of the Batman for about 10 years in film. But before we delve into the plot, let's look at the good parts. George Clooney is perfect casting to play Batman and he is a terrific Batman but he had to deal with some bullshit in this movie! If not for the awesomely ridiculous plot this would be one of the best potrayals of Batman ever. Second, I still love the look of Gotham City in this movie. The art designer himself stated it was like "...the world fair on steroids" and that is pretty awesome! Also, big praise towards the fact they adopted the Animated Series origin of Mr. Freeze, that was pretty great that they added that human emotion to his character. And lastly, the best part of the entire movie is when Bruce and Alfred talk about life and death. Alfred is terminally ill and that already is very heartbreaking but it gets more sad, they are very quiet scenes where Bruce and Alfred talk about their relationship. Life and death, happiness and sadness, the fact that they are not just master and butler but family who love each other. That is what I take away from this movie. Alfred has always reminded me of my grandfather, and my grandfather got very sick and passed away. And everytime I see those moments, I remember him. And it is because of those scenes that elevates this film higher than most other people would deem it. Sorry about that emotional bomb, it's just what I remember most. But we will delve into the plot now. Crazy plot even whenever summarized so bear with me here. Batman is called to action once again battling the frigid Mr. Freeze, who teams up with both the lethal Poison Ivy and the behemoth Bane to destroy Gotham and break the Bat. It gets more ridiculous in depth, but I just wanted to give a brief overview of the madness. Now for the bad parts! And I'll try to keep it short and coherent. Where do I begin? You know, the whole bat nipple thing never really bothered me especially after Joel Schumacher said he modeled the suits after Greek statues and I thought that was pretty clever so no issue there. But my God, they butchered Bane. If you saw The Dark Knight Rises, you know how Bane is and he is so much more than that potrayal in the comics but they screwed him up the most more than any other villain! At least with the others, they got the basics right about what they can do, what their backstory is, simple stuff like that but with Bane...fail! The ice puns...they actually kinda make me laugh just because how horrible they are. Yeah the jokes really suck in this movie, and the action ain't much better. I'm still debating which is worse, but I think I lean more to the jokes. At least the action, while silly is still done well (kinda). I just can't recommend this movie unless you are morbidly curious or just enjoy bad movies. Take what you will from this review for better or worse, and decide if you have the sheer nerves to sit through the whole thing.

And with that ends the Batman marathon. After this review, I need something good. Something that makes me happy. Something maybe new! Next week, the first week of May so let's get some more brand new films in here.

Kill Bill Vol. 2

Yeah this movie was just as good as the first.

Okay so Kill Bill Vol. 2 pretty much picks up where the last film left off with The Bride continuing her hunt for those that did her wrong, interlaced very nicely with flashback to her training with a kung-fu master but also what happened before Bill shot her in the head. To be honest I greatly enjoyed the first movie more than the second but it was still a great movie nevertheless. I think of it as the first movie was over the top but not at all in a bad way and the second movie is more subdued. Uma Thurman is still great as The Bride, we see more of Bill played by David Carradine who is pretty damn good in this movie. To me he is sort of an enigma, I can't make heads or tails of his character which I think is what they were going for, cause he doesn't seem like a nice guy, and although he did almost kill The Bride he doesn't really do much else bad. It really does keep you guessing as to what the hell he is going to say or do next, and I have to admit he has a really good monologue even though I could argue the merits of it since it involves Superman. One thing I never mentioned in the last review is that the films have scenes in black and white, and that makes you greatly appreciate the color in this movie although the black and white cinematography is gorgeous. The editing is much slower but still has it's uniqueness to it, the music is still great and I was very pleasantly surprised hearing Ennio Morricone's score from The Man With No Name movies. Now obviously you have to watch both parts to get the full story, and the second part is really good but the first part really hit it out of the ballpark for me. And there is a twist in this movie! Like I'm going to tell you, but you won't see it coming ever. So really good movie, really good series, got one more review this week so stay tuned for more!

Kill Bill Vol. 1

And thus I have returned from my turkey coma, and am ready to begin again.

I have never ever seen this movie until now, and I can safely say that I am not dissapointed. This film is fantastic. Like almost all of Quentin Tarantino's work it is greatly different from any other movie you have seen before. Slick, beautiful, quick, and unforgiving Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a sight to behold. The story is a revenge story, Uma Thurman is The Bride as she is called in this movie hunting down every single person who left her for dead on her wedding day. I really enjoyed how the story is told, very much like in Pulp Fiction it is told out of order and thankfully you never get lost as to where the events take place. Uma Thurman who is great as The Bride can get a hell of a lot of emotion out even though she speaks very little. The fight scenes are brilliant, and the choreography in them is staggering. The editing is quick in every scene and is very fluid. The music has such a wide range of variety, like you hear music from Nancy Sinatra to hearing music straight out of a spaghetti western, it is a character in and of itself! The film is brutal, it's beautiful, it catches your eye from the beginning and never lets go until the credits roll. So my expectations are soaring for Vol. 2, I cannot wait until tomorrow! Give this film a shot, it is very dynamic and different but that is the reason why people love it!