Planetes vs Cringely
“Robert X Cringely” (Mark Stephens) offers his own design for a “space garbage scow” to clean up all the space junk. It sounds a bit more practical than the approach… Read more »
The Men Who Stare at Goats–Movie Review
Ewan McGregor “More of this is true than you would believe.” The Men Who Stare at Goats is an offbeat comedy that gains a certain edginess by making us wonder… Read more »
Amelia–Movie Review
Amelia, a biography of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart (Hilary Swank) is interesting but curiously unengaging. It is reasonably historically accurate (at least by biopic standards) and may be worth watching… Read more »
A Serious Man–Movie Review
Wow! Ethan and Joel Coen must have been in a really dark mood when the made A Serious Man. It is a very, very dark comedy, essentially a retelling of… Read more »
Fall 2009 Anime Season–Second Thoughts
By now I’ve had time to sample everything that looks interesting, and to write individual posts about some of them. Here’s a rundown of my current impressions. Possibly worthwhile (depending… Read more »
Aoi Bungaku–First Impressions
This is an interesting and unusual anime series: an anthology of six stories by highly-regarded modern Japanese writers. Each story has a different director, which may lead to an uneven… Read more »
Anime Top 5 Lists
The latest fad among anime bloggers seems to be to list your top 5 anime, then try to draw conclusions from the list. I’m willing to play along, but I’m… Read more »
Kimi ni Todoke–First Impressions
Angsty shoujo romance is usually something I tune out very quickly (unless it’s played for laughs as in Itazura na Kiss.) Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You) plays it totally straight,… Read more »
Shakugan no Shana S OVA 1
The OVA turns out to be better than I had feared. It’s a lightweight filler story (which is true of just about every OVA released for a television series, except… Read more »
Kobato.–First Impressions
So far Kobato. (with a period) is my favorite series of an admittedly weak fall anime season. It’s cute, it’s funny and it’s charming. Maybe there’s more to it than… Read more »