FunBlog

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that you woke up one morning and discovered that you had become a god. It might be great–perhaps you could solve all of your problems with a snap of your fingers! Or (if you have a fantasy writer’s imagination) it might be awful. Gods might have powerful enemies and worse problems than you will ever have to face. But perhaps the worst outcome would be if it actually didn’t make much difference in your life.
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This movie is about penguins that sing and dance.

It also has a plot, I think. There is a young penguin who can’t sing and wants to tap dance, but tap dancing is forbidden for some theological reason that I can’t follow, so the tribal Elders expel him from the flock and he goes on a quest to find the aliens who have been stealing all the fish, and…

Oh never mind. It has penguins. Thousands and thousands of penguins, singing and dancing under the aurora australis. What can I say? “Pengin-san, pengin-san, pengin-san!”

Robert De Niro’s new movie (his second attempt as a director) is a long, dark and convoluted psychological thriller about the early days of the CIA and the men who founded it. This is a bit more serious than the usual spy thriller. Though most of the events in the movie are fictional, most of them are inspired by something that actually occurred, or at least which somebody claims actually occurred. (It’s a business where it is often difficult to separate history from disinformation.)

Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a character based very loosely on James Jesus Angleton, who was head of counterintelligence for the CIA from 1954 to 1974. Angleton was a controversial figure who is remembered most for his obsessive search for Soviet “moles” in the agency.
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OK, maybe I should clarify the previous post.

First, I intend to buy the DVDs even if they mess them up badly. That’s the only practical way that I can show my appreciation to the people who created the original series.

Second, I’m not that hard to please. All I really need are two things. One should be a given: that they include the original Japanese soundtrack with Aya Hirano as Haruhi and Tomokazu Sugita as Kyon, along with decent subtitles. The other I’m a little more nervous about: that they include the episodes in the original broadcast order.
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The teaser site now has an official announcement that The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is being released by Kadokawa Pictures USA and distributed by Bandai Entertainment.

It also has a rather lame promotional video that probably won’t help them very much. Like the original series it is sort of weird, but unlike the original series it is not very funny.

There is no word yet on when the DVDs will be available or how badly the translators are going to mess it up. ;-)

This is one of the most popular anime series of all time, though hard-core otaku tend to look down on it. It attracted an enormous audience when it was first broadcast in Japan. Millions of Americans have watched a horribly dubbed version on the Cartoon Network, and dubbed versions in other languages have been broadcast in many other countries.

There are reasons for its popularity. This show has many of the attributes of greatness. However it also has a serious flaw which keeps me from giving it a wholehearted recommendation. Nevertheless I have a certain fondness for it. For one thing it was seeing it on the Cartoon Network that first got me interested in anime.
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The web is buzzing with speculation that The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has finally been licensed, based largely on a teaser site with teaser links from people who may be in a position to know. So we should know for sure by the end of the week.

But will the news really be good? We’ll probably have to wait even longer to see whether they

• Change the location to Cleveland.
• Give the characters Anglo names.
• Show the episodes in chronological order.

This movie starts with a statement that it is “inspired by a true story”. Of course that is Hollywood-speak for “there is not a grain of truth to be found here.” Fortunately something doesn’t have to be true to be a good story. In fact this one is a real charmer.

Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a smart man (though without much formal education) but he is very unlucky. Life seems determined not to hand him a break. He has invested all of his meager savings in a business selling bone-density scanners, but though he seems to be a competent salesman nobody wants to buy them. He is behind on his rent and taxes, and his wife is sick of working double shifts to make ends meet.
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Mel Gibson’s latest movie is a dark, bloody, riveting action-adventure thriller. Actually “bloody” is the operative word; I can’t recall seeing a man getting his face chewed off by a jaguar before.

This undeniably has a certain entertainment value, at least for those with strong stomachs. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. However I didn’t feel very good about it afterward. I am not against violence in the movies in principle, but I feel that the use of violence needs to be justified by artistic necessity and by the importance of the story being told. The greater the work and the more important the story, the more violence I am willing to tolerate.

In this case I ended up feeling that this is basically a movie about cheap thrills. For that I would prefer a little less horror and gore.
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This is little gem of a show: small but flawless, perfectly formed and expertly cut.

Superficially this seems to be a very simple children’s story. On closer examination it is not written entirely for children. It is a story told on multiple levels, put together with exquisite craftsmanship, with subtle symbolism and wonderful characters. It is a remarkable piece of work–every time I rewatch an episode I am impressed again by how well it is done.
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