Tor published an excellent article yesterday about how Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind not only helped found Studio Ghibli, but set Miyazaki on the path that would define his career. It is one of the best postings I have seen on the subject, exploring both its influences and results, and now I am going to have to break the film out and watch it again, 30 years after its initial release, and see just how close she came to telling the true story. Pretty close, I am thinking.
Today we finally got to see the second teaser trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, based on the groundbreaking graphic novel Valerian & Laureline. This is the second major motion picture taking place fully in this universe (Fifth Element was the first), but you have seen scenes inspired by the series in other movies (including Star Wars, which took the cantina scene, Chewbacca, The Death Star, the Slave Leia outfit, and a whole lot more from it) and TV shows. It also had its own TV show in 2007 and 2008, but that is difficult to come by in North America. The new film will be on the big screen on July 21st, and I WILL be in the theater to see it!
Disney/Pixar just posted Dante’s Lunch – A Short Tail, and it was too much fun to keep to myself. It is a short slice of Coco, which opens in U.S. theaters on Nov. 22, 2017. I am also including the official teaser trailer, for those who haven’t seen it yet.
There is only one movie I will be in the theater for this weekend: Ghost in the Shell live action US remake. Was there ever any doubt?
Leading the pack this time is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the next generation series from the Harry Potter universe. I can’t wait to see where J. K. Rowling goes with this one, the first film was exceedingly tasty, probably because she wrote the screenplay herself. The other selection is A Monster Calls, a serious and powerful movie that did poorly at the box office, probably because most folks thought it was about some friendly monster. The target audience wasn’t kids at all, so most of the kids that get sent to see it by parents who had never read the book left it depressed and confused, generating a lot of bad word of mouth for the film.
In Anime, Steins;Gate: The Movie brings home the ending that the original creators always intended, where Deja Vu are only your fragmented memories of alternate time lines. This is their last chance to get it right or to lose their possibilities forever. I found Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? a wonderful series, but it really only covered the events of the first book. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that the flag The Complete Series means the complete first season, and not that they are not going to produce the rest of the story. As the series final works its way toward us, Boruto: Naruto the Movie helps usher in new generation of ninja. Fairy Tail: Collection 7 brings another half-years worth of episodes home, with Lucy kidnapped and merged with a time bomb, and all the other guilds out to get our heroes, I predict an unprecedented amount of collateral damage with this one. The war continues in Heavy Object: Season 1 Part 2, but it is a full dozen episodes despite the title.
Luck & Logic: The Complete Series has the gods rampaging over the Earth, creating all sorts of problems, one of which appears to be wiping out the Funimation and Crunchyroll web servers that stream their episode, hence no link. Diabolik Lovers II: More Blood seems to have the same fate, so I am thinking the servers may just be down for the moment. When I find them back up, I will add the links here. Finally, Inari Kon Kon: The Complete Series + OVA is coming out in a S.A.V.E. edition, for those who do not already own the Fox Goddess driven magical rom/com.
GOOD ON THE REEL released their third full album this February, and since it has been a few years since I last posted about them I thought it was time to take a look at some of their recent work. The first track is the somewhat pop A Small Room from their new album Guanaco’s Feet, the next is the much more rock Keeping Rain in Line, or maybe Rain Keeping Lines; whatever it is called, I like it a lot. That one was posted in 2016.