Rating: 2/5
Rating: 5/5
Akira is about a top secret government experiment gone wrong. A street gang gets tangled in the experiment and one of the gang members, Tetsuo, started manifesting unusual mental powers and destroying things. The gang leader, Kaneda, took it as his responsibility to set out and stop Tetsou. It culminates in an action-packed showdown that shifted towards the metaphysical.
I noticed that such shifts seems to recur in quite a few of the animes I’ve seen. I noticed it first in Robotech, then Evangelion, and now Akira. It somehow reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s Space 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Rating: 3/5
I’ve heard about Neon Genesis Evangelion or Evangelion before. In fact I’ve seen an Evangelion movie (forgot which, see below) and Rei Ayanami is a favorite anime character. However, I haven’t seen the TV series. This is bad since Evangelion is supposedly one of the best as well as one of the most influential animes. This changed when I was able to borrow a copy of the TV series from Aby. I immediately and eagerly watched it over several days.
Evangelion is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth under attack by an enemy referred to as Angels. The Angels are invulnerable to conventional weapons because of their AT shields. The only weapon that can combat the angels are Evangelions or Evas. These are experimental highly-unstable mecha which also have AT shields. As the series progresses a lot of combat ensues and a conspiracy unfolds. This plus the focus on the characters makes for a quite compelling story.
Unfortunately, the ending– specifically episodes 25 and 26– was, to say the least, confusing. It was all a sequence of psychological and metaphysical meandering occurring purely in the characters’ heads. I did some research and found out a lot of fans were also confused and dissatisfied with the ending.
Thus, when the first Evangelion movie, Death and Rebirth, was released it included an alternate ending. It is composed of two parts: Death which is the merging of the truncated TV episodes and Rebirth which is the the alternate ending. Rebirth however is not the full ending as the movie was released before it can be completed.
So another movie called The End of Evangelion was released which is composed solely of the alternate ending episodes (episodes 25′ and 26′) to the TV series. After watching this, things become a bit clearer but also a bit more muddled. But heck, it rocks!
All these were finally brought together in Renewal of Evangelion which is composed of an edited Death part of Death and Rebirth plus End of Evangelion. This movie is considered the complete Neon Genesis Evangelion movie.
But wait! There’s more! A new movie called Rebuild of Evangelion with new scenes is coming out. And there’s even rumors of a live action movie.
Rating: 4/5
As we settled in for the movie, in walks to applause none other than the man, Quentin Tarantino, himself! He gave a short introduction, punctuated with jokes and laughter, to the film. He then settled in with the audience, which is composed mainly of budding filmmakers (Quark Henares among them) and film buffs, to watch the film.
Death Proof is about a bunch of women from the show industry being offed serially (or should I say in sets?) by a deranged stuntman on his “deathproofed” muscle car. As expected, it’s full of action, including a longish car chase involving not one but two muscle cars. And, of course, there’s an exaggerated amount of blood and gore. In addition the film is full of intentional bad filmmaking. It’s an obviously synthesized crap movie. Which makes it quite enjoyable for what it is.
Rating: 3/5