The first major public event for the new live action Ghost In The Shell took place several weeks ago in Tokyo, and has been posted online by a number of folks; the one used here is from Germany’s Movie Maniacs team. This was the event where they released the first full trailer, and also did some interview time with actor/filmmaker Beat Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano) and actress Scarlett Johansson, both of whom were named. Also on stage for the interview was director Rupert Sanders, only named Rupert in the video segment, with actor/interviewer Chris Peppler of NHK fame doing the Master of Ceremonies job and asking all the questions. They start the video off with the musical segment that accompanies the Shelling of the Ghost footage led and directed by composer and musician Kenji Kawai, who they also never named. I figured it was appropriate for me to name everyone correctly here.
This is a teaser rather than a full trailer, but it does give you an idea of what the Live Action version of Fullmetal Alchemist is going to look like. Sadly I couldn’t find a version with English subtitles I could post here, but if you go to the home page I linked they have one you can watch.
Most of the titles for this weekend are horror variations, so I intend to binge watch some good streaming video. If you haven’t seen it yet I can recommend Time Taxi at Crunchyroll, Deadbeat over at Hulu, or Any of the Marvel TV series over at Netflix
There are a lot of family friendly choices this time, starting with the live action remake of Pete’s Dragon from Disney. Spielberg’s take on Roald Dahl’s The BFG is also by way of Disney, and also family friendly. The animated adventure comedy The Wild Life has one of the more cleverly done interactive web sites that I have seen, is a world of fun, and again, is family friendly. It is also still another excellent example of the kind of quality animation work coming out of Belgium and France this century. I do have to admit that Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie is family friendly for only certain totally twisted and dysfunctional variations of the word Family (or Friendly, for that matter), which should be obvious from its R rating, but it is a total hoot as well. See this one, just don’t let your kids in the room while you are watching it.
In Anime, Death Parade: The Complete Series has a simple premise: When two people die at the same time, they have to fight. The one who wins gets to live again, the one who loses is gone for good. Decim is the arbiter:a judge who determines whether or not a soul is worthy of reincarnation. At least until he until he meets a mysterious young woman whose fate seems impossible to decide, and the real story gets underway. Knights of Sidonia: Battle for Planet Nine, Complete Collection is season 2 of this series, and includes all 12 episodes plus the movie. This is not the first anime series to explore what it means to be human, or even the first to do so while the characters DNA is being rewritten, but it does have a somewhat unique approach to the question. The first part of one of this years most edge-of-your-seat shows, God Eater 1, also becomes available this week. I will be waiting for them to put all 13 episodes into a single box set myself, but it is good to see they are making it available in however limited a form.
Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has been one of my favorite X-Men characters from the beginning, so when we hit March 3rd I will be in the theaters to see Logan, the third film in the set. Pretty much the only thing I didn’t like about any of the movies was the poorly thought out decision to sew Deadpool’s lips shut in the second one. I suppose the had to do that though or risk the characters outrageous dialog pulling attention away from the protagonist and the story they were trying to tell.
The first trailer presented here is the new one, the first real trailer, and it is impressive as hell. The second one is the original teaser-trailer set, actually 5 little mini-teasers from the upcoming Ghost In The Shell live action film that has Scarlett Johansson playing the cyborg policewoman Major Motoko Kusanagi. Likes for me include the fact that they are playing the cyborg nudity as it was originally intended, necessary for the optical camouflage made possible by the nano-camera in each skin cell sending its captured image to a predetermined cell on the opposite side of the body to re-radiate. The only dislike I have encountered so far is when you hear Scarlett say This is Major like that was her name, rather than This is THE Major, or even better replicate the original story by having her say This is Kusanagi. But the new trailer looks amazing, and when it is released if I get to the end of the film with that being my only objection, I will count myself lucky indeed. Is it 2017 yet?