Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler So what are you watching tonight?

Watched Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 last night, after watching Mesrine: Killer Instinct last week. Great work from Vincent Cassel and a really interesting crime drama for those who dig that kind of thing (Bonnie and Clyde, Public Enemies, etc)

Next on to the Carlos mini-series, and I should be done with international crime biopics genre for at least a little while.

Ok this is the last time I order a Blu-ray based on the video and audio quality recommendations on Blu-ray.com w/o reading the actual movie reviews first.

So what was the waste of time this weekend . . . Imagine “The 300” meets “Salo” done by a troupe of owl thespians from the UK and Southern Australasia. Oh yeah it‘s called “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.” Note that’s “Ga’Hoole” and not Goa’uld, ala “Stargate SG1” cause that might fool you into thinking it could be interesting, with you know chemistry between the characters or something.

Ok it is a visual extravaganza despite the mostly dark scenes and muted colours. Also the audio is very good though I was not so impressed with it as the Blu-ray.com reviewer. Yep that sums up the good parts.

I’ll stop beating around the bush and tell you what I really thought of LOTG . . . Boring!!!! So boring in fact it made me wish I hadn’t sent back “The Last Airbender” because at least it’s horrible acting gave me something more than eye candy to pay attention to and at least feel something to feel sorry for, the actors, if not the characters. Whereas LOTG left me caring about nothing. Well not true. I cared about listening for the kitchen timer ticking away waiting for my lasagna to finish cooking.

Some might like the fight scenes but for me it was to much like “The 300” with the same slow motion crap that looked like cut scenes from a video game. Then there were the obvious 3D shots that looked really forced in 2D on a big screen.

As for the story there were to many characters to keep track of, most of whom were unimportant anyway. Also there were to many things going on to create one coherent plot other than the good guys vs the bad guys. Besides being boring this thing is dark, story-wise not lighting though it’s often that too. Even with it’s PG rating I don’t know that I would let little kids watch it both because of the violence and the dark theme. Which is another problem with this film, that it has no sense of humor.

Well I’ve rambled long enough so let me recap. LOTG is a boring, dark, humourless, violent, pretty (sounds like art) movie that deserves to be on some ones worst list near “The Last Airbender.” Here’s a thought, lets swap directors for the sequels I’m sure their planning for each of these. Meanwhile I’ll go refill my prescription for Prozac.

*moves LOTG to the top of Netflix queue*


Boy, I'm not sure about this movie. I wish someone would come along with a review about it.

Re-reading that maybe I was to harsh. There was one scene that was almost funny where the little sister owl upchucked her first pellet. Ok, ya had to be there.

That takes me back to 5th grade when we carefully picked through our own assigned owl pellets for the bones of whatever unfortunate little critter got eaten and tried to reconstruct it's skeleton.

You sure Jean Van Damme wasn't in it? Yes, you gotta hate those dark movies.

You’re description of that was more exciting than LOTG.

Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the story of the movie at all. There just wasn't anything to it. Zack Snyder isn't my favorite director, either. The slow-mo and general look of his movies does get a bit tiresome for me. I also ordered this one based on the audio/video ratings. I'm keeping it for the demo material aspect of it, but I haven't yet been tempted to put it back into my player.

I started watching Undeclared again. It's still one of my favorite shows. Just really fun and easy to watch. It's obvious the cast was having a great time making it.

Ok in the last week I’ve watched:

Kurau: Phantom Memory

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/kurau-phantom-memory/dvd-1

Easily the best story of these. 24 half hour episodes in 4x3/5.1 audio though the 5.1 is a bit thin. I give it 4 stars.

Legend of Himiko

http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=175

Very retro looking animation with the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon except for the violence and mild fanservice. 12 half hour episodes in 4x3/5.1 again the 5.1 is thin. I give it 3 stars.

Burst Angel

http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=749

No a mecha show but some of the best mecha combat even though I’m not a big fan of it. Lots of violence and fare amount of fanservice. 24 half hour episodes in 16x9/5.1. Great 5.1 track with both direct and ambient surround sound and plenty of LFE even below 40Hz. 3 stars for the story but I bump it up to 3.5 because the audio is very good.

Chobits

http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=215

Less lame male lead than most anime but if you don’t like Chii you won’t like the show. 24 half hour episodes in 16x9/2.0. Nothing special just a good show 3 stars.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/magical-girl-lyrical-nanoha/dvd-box-set

If you can’t get past the age of the main characters or the fact that this panders (not parodies) to about every anime cliché out there then skip it. I found it easy to ignore the age of the characters since they acted like adults most of the time. Starts out as typical magical girls stuff but eventually turns into some interesting scifi before falling flat on it’s face at the end. 13 half hour episodes in 4x3/2.0. I give it 2.5 stars.

I’m actually making a small dent in watching my anime collection. I’d say about 15% or so. I have to be careful not to watch all the highly rated one first which I started out doing or only the crap will be left at the end. Right now I’m prioritizing the 16x9 and 5.1 stuff to watch on my HT and been focusing on the 4x3/2.0 stuff to watch at work on my portable players. Right now it’s Bleach:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/bleach

This has to be the anime that I most love and hate. When the characters are interacting and the story is actually being told “Bleach” hits it out of the park, but then there are the fights.

I’m not talking about two people just standing there bitch-slapping each other either. No it usually takes at least half an episode or more to get that far. First we have the posturing and taunting. Then if we’re lucky a digression to something else to come back later and find the taunting continues, sometimes into the next episode. Then there’s a little action followed by hearing the inner monologues of both characters as each realizes something critical about their opponent that could determine the outcome of the fight. Then more digression followed by more taunting as each opponent reveals to the other that they’re really holding back but will now “bring it.” Usually meaning they’re just turning it up a notch but not all the way, cause why the hell would we want to end the fight before it’s lasted 3 episodes.

Also almost all these fights are man to man (beast) or babe to babe taking place with the opponents alone or due to some point of honour engaging in only single combat while everyone else stands around and watches picking their noses or picking their own single combats.

However, if you can get past that “Bleach” has one of the most interesting and odd group of character I’ve ever seen. Yachiru Kusajishi, the 11th Division’s Lieutenant has to be one of the strangest character choices I’ve seen. But the writing and character interaction are so good that all this diversity works w/o becoming overwhelming.

So far I’m on disk 16 or 17 Ito lazy to look which is around episode 50 or so.

http://www.quiztron.com/tests/bleach_character_quiz_10083.htm

Ichigo Kurosaki

And the description really does fit me:

You act weird compared to everyone else around you as if you dont give a care

I just watched the Blu-ray of “The Expendables.” I have to go against the grain on this one and say that I really liked watching it.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Expendables-Blu-ray/12797/#Review

There was no real plot or meaningful story arcs. Precious little character development. Not much that was close to believable. In other words it was an 80s era feel good action flick and parody of them and at that it worked.

The video quality was pretty good but the audio quality especially the ending fight was great. Not much real low LFE but the surround sound was all over the place. Bullets whizzing past my head ricochets from all directions. One of the most aggressive and enveloping uses of surround sound I’ve ever heard.

One thing I really liked was that for the most part, except at the end, fights were quick, dirty and over, the way they should be. Their were only a couple of times that characters had to behave stupidly to advance the story in a particular direction. Surprisingly there were several time when the opposite of what I expected happened. Most of the dialogue was mediocre but there were a couple scenes and a few lines that had me chuckling.

Don’t go into this expecting anything more than to be entertained assuming you like retro action movies. I’ve you’re a big fan of the present gritty and “realistic” styled James Bond movies you probably won’t like this one. But then I’m not a fan of them at all.