I can't say I've actively removed myself from the Internet, but I haven't been much of a presence this past week either. I'm not really avoiding anyone or anything. Not even April Fools' Day, though I'm not a big fan of pranks and some are so desperate for a "GOTCHA!!!!" reaction this year they released April Fools' information two days early. What?! There's a reason it's called April Fools' DAY! Oh, and IGN's joke trailer for the Zelda movie took three months of production. Sure, it's awesome, but it's also a little sad at the same time. At the office this week, we switched everyone's desktop pictures to something they would detest. OOOOOOOO, EXTREME! The only real joke played on me April 1st was they opened the Indiana Jones shop and I have absolutely no money to spend on it. Wah wah wah BOIIIIIIIIIING!
Actually, on April 1st, I apparently had some energy I didn't spend before going to bed and I had some sort of a fever dream I don't remember. Then I couldn't get back to sleep and only could stay up and watch the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie, which is a fever dream put to animation. I laughed a few times and the ending is a perfect climax/anti-climax, but its irreverence is its lifeforce and its grave. Totally a movie that should just be caught on cable, which is, coincidentally, where I saw it. Anyhoo, after that, my sleep's been more off than usual, so I've been stuck in the world of limbo being conscious and subconscious. Sure, it's interesting when 10 minutes pass by and I'm so dazed I don't realize it (This is not at work, by the way), but it sure doesn't make me want to do things.
At least last Sunday, I celebrated with some work friends and watched the movie Major League to celebrate the opening of the baseball season. Classic movie, infinitely quotable.
(Looking at the people they're inviting to Spring Training)
"This guy here's DEAD!"
"Cross him off, then."
I'm not counting on the Florida Marlins to do much this year. I mean, this is our pitching rotation:
Mark "Wild Thing" Hendrickson (Named as such because-until last summer-people didn't even know he could BARELY SEE and needed glasses. This is our #1 pitcher, ladies and gentlemen)
Rick "Dutchie" VandenHurk (I'll give you one guess why I call him that)
Andrew Miller "Genuine Draft"
Scott "DON'T TASE ME, BRO!" Olsen
Ricky "No Stick" Nolasco
Casual sports fans, raise your hand if you've heard of any of them (And not because of Scott Olsen's run-in with the police). There's even a reliever named Pinto. Hopefully, this rag-tag group of young guns can pull together and pull off a surprise. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm not counting on it, though. Oh, and the Pittsburgh Penguins could be the number 1 seed in the Eastern Conference and beat the shit out of the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of the playoffs! That would be fun if that happened. Shame I can't watch a good amount of hockey because nobody really shows it.
Speaking of sports, caught George Clooney's 1920's football movie Leatherheads. Unlike the other two movies Clooney's helmed, there's really not too much to say about it. It has some pacing problems. The opening credit sequence should've had the credits roll over the action or they should've saved them for the end, for instance. The fragmenting of the sequence really killed the energy. The movie hammers its point about professionalism ruining the game too hard. BUT, when the dialogue's clicking, the movie is on FIRE! If you want to see this movie, odds are you'll have a good time. If you're dragged by someone else, you might find yourself enjoying some scenes just the same. I don't know what else to tell ya'.
Doing a complete 180, I got my copy of 5 Centimeters Per Second in the mail this week. As any of the street-level reviewers will tell you, any remarks that Makoto Shinkai (Who I may call Matoko Shinkai sometimes for some unknown reason. I'm not even dyslexic!) is the next Miyazaki is complete and absolute puffery, but he IS a talent to watch.
For those who don't know and are still reading this for whatever reason, Shinkai made Voices of a Distant Star, a 25-minute animated short movie about two young psuedo-lovers who become separated by inter-steller war and become more empty as their messages take longer to reach each other. The thing that distinguishes it is that Shinkai pretty much animated the whole thing BY HIMSELF and-save some shots that hold on a still image too long-looks like something professionally produced by an entire staff. Regardless of whether people found the content ridiculous and nieve, people had to respect him for that. Then he bumped up his staff-to say the least-and made The Place Promised in Our Early Days, a feature-length movie about an alternate reality where a group called the "Union" take over Hokkaido after World War II and build a giant tower on it, and two friends who have their dreams of traveling to the tower by airplane dashed when a classmate they both secretly love goes into a coma for unknown reasons. It solidified his status as an auteur, improved his visual scope, and proved he could move up to 90 minutes without losing any impact on his work. Now, he has his next movie, 5 Centimeters Per Second, which, in my mind, gets him a few centimeters-per-second closer to making a bonified masterpiece.
(Some minors spoilers on his first two works to follow)
There's something that has kept me for fully hailing Shinaki as a master. Well, besides his limited cache of work and the I hate it when words saved for the absolute creme de la creme are used lightly. His works have been simple personal stories set in much more complicated backdrops, and the more one dissects the backdrop, the more ridiculous it becomes. Voices of a Distant Star has a MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL being DRAFTED FOR WAR. I know this is anime and all, but Shinkai tries to ground everything in a reality that's not so far off from actual reality, which makes things awkward when things like 15 year-old girls get drafted to fight aliens in giant robots. I watched The Place Promised in Our Early Days again today and while it's better than I remember, I still have a hard time getting over the reasoning behind building the huge tower. It's so subtle, most people completely miss the bits of information that tell you why, but when it's put together, some of it makes me seriously doubt any government alliance would pay so much damn money to build it. It's a peripheral issue, but they constantly thrust it into the foreground, so I HAVE to take it as important.
5 Centimeters Per Second is a series of three short stories in the life of Toko Takaki, an every student in Tokyo. The title refers to the speed in which a blossum falls to the ground, and other metaphorical things. In the first vignette, Takaki takes a LONG trip to his young puppy love sweetheart who got transfered out when they got to middle school. As he takes the trip, the movie flashes back to how the relationship developed. Even though the person at the end is the typical Shinkai female lead whose sole personality trait is cuteness, the humanity and emotion shines through.
This whole thing totally harkens back to Voices of a Distant Star and Place Promised.... but without any of the sci-fi elements (In fact, the only things that even approaches science fiction in the whole movie is a dream and a parallel side story about the launching of a Japanese satellite). Then, the movie becomes something more in the second part. It might spoil the ooey gooey feelings, but it follows Takaki in his high school and shows how his long-distance relationship effects him later on life through another person. It spouts melancholy by the gallon, but does it ever work. It's here Shinkai strives for deeper things than just a story of two lovers separated by distance, and mostly succeeds. Then, just as everything's about to come together, the third part creeps in and leaves the audience with one "KWEH?!" of an ending.
I need to watch this again to get a better idea of what Shinkai was driving at, but when the movie looks like it's going to develop a bittersweet-yet-satisfying payoff, it ends with a music video-like sequence. I've been a firm defender of difficult and atypical endings, from Mulholland Dr. to No Country for Old Men, but this time, I feel this wasn't the best way to end the movie. You can imply the HELL out of everything and you get plenty of inklings of what's to become of Takaki and why events that played out happened the way they did, but in this case, 20 minutes extra running time rounding out the story would've made this movie a home run. It's still a quality movie I more than heartily recommend people check out, but Shinkai has a little ways to go before he gets a purely great work. Oh well. Small moves, Elly. Small moves.
I've written WAY more than enough. I'm going to get along to playing Silent Hill Origins, my one lone treat until next paycheck. I have to keep reminding myself it's originally a PSP game and not a full-fledged PS 2 game, but it has its charms. The main character's a trucker and will often engage the monsters in a battle of fisticuffs. If you ever wanted to see what would happen if you mixed Road House with a horror movie, play a little of this game. Hmmmm, and I thought the main character would employ the tactic of cutting off the monster in the passing lane, running parallel to another slow semi for ten minutes, and flinging high-velocity gravel at it until it died. Sorry, I'm a little pissed off at a trucker who just COULDN'T wait for me to pass, got in front me, and shot a piece of gravel that did serious damage to my windshield and I don't have $250 to replace it right now, ESPECIALLY after renewing my license and changing my oil, air filter, and fuel filter. By the way, my new license photo is beard-o-riffic!
Today's Outburst of Emotion IS.....
I may not have any money, but I'm still maintaining my dignity
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