Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 70

I grew up with the original Transformers series. Over the years i have seen many incarnations of the popular franchise. Then i heard that they were making a movie. I wont go as far to say that I’m a fan-boy of the series. I was however very excited about this upcoming movie. I’m not afraid to admit that i felt a little nostalgia as i waited eagerly for that opening day. Then that long awaited day finally arrived. I felt the excitement building in me as i waited until i got off work that day and the day dragged by slower then usual. I knew i would either love it or hate it there would be no in between for me. Then finally the buzzer signaling the end of the day went off. I was off and out the door in minutes my excitement barely contained. I went home and changed told my wife i was go to the movies. I asked if my step-son wanted to go and then we were off. The only thing left was to stop and pick up my friend and we would be on our way to the theater. We arrived at the theater and purchased our tickets and our snacks at the concession stand. We made our way to our seats and sat down. I had finally made it to this spot. Know lets get on to what i thought of the movie. Well i loved the movie it was a well thought out story, with bigger than life special effects. The lead Shia LaBeouf I feel is coming into his own as an actor. This is one talented young man and proves here once again the kind of range he has. Let me just say that Megan fox is hot as the leading lady with a body that wont quit. the robot in disguise themselves is some of the best CGI I have seen in a long time. so in short i was not at all disappointed. This movie give a new generation of children the same joy it gave to us as children. In the years to come this movie will go down as a classic. The non-stop action the over the top special effects make this movie a must see. Out of the major blockbuster movies last summer this was one of the top three. It will always remain one of my all time favorite movies. I want everyone to bare with me as this was my first review, and I hope I will have many more to come.

 

Postmodernism as an Artistic Space. the Photographic World of Chezhin the Artist

Black and white photography (and, latterly, colour photography) always emphasises the dividing line marking the intersection between time(s) and space(s), the intersection and interpenetration of today and yesterday, today and tomorrow – of my life and someone else’s. It points to the event experienced by a person (someone we know or don’t know, myself, just someone, nature, or society as a whole) at the moment when my attention is directed at the rectangular frame recording that which has already been and gone and which is yet present in my life just so long as I am looking at (remembering) it.

Those who turn our life, the reality of our experience, into photographic images measure it as a news reporter does, give it aesthetic order as does a film director, and ‘set up’ frames to ‘please the eye’ – just as the archivist who acts as custodian of the past. And yet sometimes subordination to the past (not to history, i.e. not to past time in the form of events) turns out to be too confining a role for the photographer and he becomes an Artist. An Artist who subordinates to himself and his will time, space, and the reality of time and space, directing the facial expressions of the main actors in his art – i.e. time (considered as a flow of passing moments) and events. In his hands the camera, negatives/positives, exhibits, and other tools of trade become instruments in the attainment of higher goals. This is how it was that at some point in his photographic career Andrey Chezhin became not a master of artistic photography or some particular genre of photography, but an artist uplifted by the coloured wings of the style of our age – that style which the critics love to slate, postmodernism.

Andrey Chezhin’s reincarnation occurred in the not so distant past, against the background of historic events that had broken the consciousness of generations condemned to witness the change of course undergone by the giant ghost ship USSR-Russia as it turned from socialism to capitalism and from total paralysis of its executive structures to idiocy.

It was o­nly natural that the consciousness of the photographer/artist-to-be should energetically throw off torpidity and slip out of its old skin. Simple recording of social reality accompanied by clicks of the camera shutter gave way to interest in staged photography and experiments with exhibits (sometimes as many as three or more). Furthermore, Chezhin needed a suitable object of investigation – complete with hands, legs, and heads etc.; and this, for lack of other candidates prepared to surrender themselves to the required extent, turned out to be the artist himself, ever obedient to and trustful of his own direction. It was at this time, at the end of the 1980s, that Chezhin’s first composite works – Black Square (1988) and Red Square (1990) – made their appearance. These, of course, referred to Kazimir Malevich, a recent exhibition of whose works at the RussianMuseum had triumphantly signalled a new era in the history of art and, more specifically, the lifting of taboos o­n interest in various stages in the development of 20th-century art.

Black Square and Red Square are, as already noted, composite works, each being made up of four parts. They were conceived by Chezhin not as a photographic series or a frame by frame sequence, as in film, but as structural works where each part is no more than a brick supporting the overall equilibrium of the entire structure. The main character here is man. In the first case, man is depicted with a black square o­n his forehead/brain; in the second, he is shown taking off the fetters that bind him.

The first part of Red Square shows an individual standing upright with arms held out horizontally and legs placed wide apart. His figure is hemmed in (drawn round) at its extremities – which form the end points of a geometrical shape – by a line/rope which calls to mind Leonardo’s quest for the ‘golden section’ in the proportions of the human body. The red square contains all the space whose contours are marked and defined by the rope-line; and the man is himself enclosed in this space. Then, in the next two parts of this work, he manages to free himself from the rope as his head, arms, and legs are liberated in turn, while, at the same time, the area of control exercised by the red square o­n the surface of the photograph grows progressively narrower. Finally, in the last part of this work, the rope/measure is seen lying inside he artist’s workshop o­n a sheet of paper, within the red square. The viewer becomes a witness of how a cultural symbol – the ‘red square’, Malevich, Suprematism, etc. – is transformed into a sociocultural o­ne: the man casts off the rope – which initially marks the contours of a star (head, arms, legs) – and liberates himself from the red, i.e. throws off ideology (the rope/fetters/red – a sign of danger, as we remember). The red is overcome; man is free.

It was at this time, i.e. at the end of the 1980s – to be more exact, in 1988 – that Chezhin embarked o­n a series of self-portraits which is unfinished to this day. The artist photographs himself – with hair, without hair, with his wife, with a ruler; photographs his hands (in Erotica); photographs himself, himself, and himself. At the same time he started working o­n ‘types’ for his series Portraits (1990) and was continuing to record social reality (material that would be used in Pairs, a series executed in 1987-1990-1997).

Chezhin’s absurd, significant, and meaningless staged photographs of nameless types/characters give off a powerful, unpleasant semiphysiological sense/memory of a past age of male and female functionaries and workers stamped with the distinctive marks of the limited, if not curtailed consciousness of social invalidism. Here Chezhin’s photography emphatically avoids any attempt to convey the psychological state or mood of the subject; this is photography that stands outside pyschoanalysis or psychologism, outside any expression of the ‘psychical’. These are still-lifes where things (objects) are credited with neither spirit nor personal time, nor personal experience or living space or ‘physiognomy’. Individuality has been ironed out, leaving o­nly the overall characteristic grimace of types in socialist society. This is what they managed to achieve in the 70 years of Soviet rule. And Chezhin the artist here merely reflects the success enjoyed by the now deposed ideology in shaping the Soviet personality.

It is personality shaping that in my opinion is the subject of the series of works entitled Kharmsiada executed in 1995 for an exhibition called ‘The absurd object. An exhibition of presents by St Petersburg artists to D. Kharms in honour of the 100th anniversary of his birthday’.

A brick face, facial features shorn off or sewn up with thread, a face transformed by a door handle or a drawing-pin: these and other pleasures associated with methods of forming ‘new people’ are used by Chezhin in this series to present a kind of handbook for incipient power-lovers or a diary of obedience – a warning to the ‘masses’, i.e. to precisely that material from which, it should be noted, all this is moulded. Man turns to plastic, Chezhin warns us, if he stops thinking and resisting the will outside him – if he forgets his own authenticity, essence, and individuality.

Especially interesting from this point of view is Chezhin’s work o­n the creation of his epoch-making The Life of Drawing-Pins, which comprises the series Album for Drawing-Pins and The Drawing-Pin and Modernism. The drawing pin and its fellows are, as it turns out, highly convenient main characters in instances taken from daily experience/recording, absurd situations supplied by the artist and the reality that surrounds him. The unitary nature of the hero of the piece gives Chezhin unprecedented freedom to destroy individuality while setting up his own mythologised drawing-pin world, absurd to the point of recognizability, and while allowing the viewer to reach the conclusion – o­nly partly forced upon us by Chezhin himself – that ‘we are all drawing-pins, my dear sirs … ’.

Chezhin’s interest in personal expressions of humanity no doubt explains the constant use he makes of the genre of self-portraiture. Here we should observe a number of different stages in the artist’s study of himself as a representative of the human and natural worlds and of reality itself: generalization; reduction to a common denominator; and individualization of the image (himself). Here there is no opposition set up between ‘me’ and ‘they’. Chezhin is not concerned with asking himself ‘me or someone else?’; instead, he is out to find an answer to the problem ‘me’ as ‘they’. He studies man viewed statically – not in action and movement, but in the movement/change of time. What is important for him is the nature of man and the human body – not anatomy or anthropology as such, but man in his different dimensions, self-knowledge, and self-realizations (whether with a ruler or with or without hair).

The self-portraits of various different years, series, and cycles contain an element of play which comes out at transitional moments involving switches between, say, action/reality, artist/man, reality/photographic reality/artistic reality/deception/the reality of the artist’s desire and of his creative effort and destiny.

In all the photographs in the series Self-Portraits (1988-1997), Andrey Chezhin’s face is identical: the scarcely perceptible changes escape attention – even though Chezhin slips in, among the pile of material to be examined by the viewer, versions of himself both with and without hair. This deliberate recording of something intentionally, emphatically identical puts us o­n edge, causes our eyes to slow and steady in their tracks …

As Modernism and Postmodernism have developed art has frequently in o­ne way or another confronted and dealt with issues relating to time, space, and movement as process. Man, the human body and its parts, and the face as that which expresses and contains man’s essence have been recurring subjects for all kinds of artists and an object of general art discourse. But the o­nly example that comes to mind of an artist engaging in thorough self-examination and meticulous recording of himself, his ‘I’, and his face as the image of that ‘I’ dates to the 18th century and Mr. Rembrandt’s self-portraits depicting mood, grimaces, etc.

For Chezhin the human being (the ‘I’) is an object in changing time and changed temporal space (which is practically non-existent), where the emphasis is o­n paradox, e.g. o­n the non-obligatory, casual nature of a situation, o­n the o­ne hand, and the significance of the moment recorded and its recording, o­n the other.

Another feature of Andrey Chezhin’s interest in man (himself; the ‘I’ of his self-portraits) is the self-sufficient way in which, quite independently of everything external, the ‘I’ dissolves in a second person’s world and that other person’s world dissolves in the ‘I’ (here I could mention the three 1991 series called Your-mine, where female and male elements merge into a unified ‘I’). Here the ‘I’ is the artist’s ‘I’ and that of his wife. The viewer is presented with a conflict-free interpenetration of the male and that which has its beginning in woman, in nature. In Chezhin’s work the self-portrait and depiction of man is an inexhaustible topic with many typical features. o­ne other such feature is Chezhin’s use of sociocultural signs and their symbolic resonances – e.g. the red square, the black square, the rope, man, a recognizable urban landscape.

Chezhin’s series of self-portraits present life as a series of changes in the artist. His multi-part work of self-observation Calendar (1990-1991) depicts a series of situations/days/incidences – in other words, routine daily life, – examining the idea of temporal changes experienced by a static subject in a situation where measurement of the passing of time is veiled. These works grow in time, with time, and with the artist.

In every structure/work created by Andrey Chezhin social reality undergoes change and there is a movement from state to state, a sliding before and after, an imperceptible movement from edge to edge. The series Pairs (1987-1997), for instance, comprises sheets composed in 1997 from pairs of snap photographs taken over the period 1987-1990. Together, they form a collection of works that are sign-like and legible. Their meaning is accessible o­n the basis of associations and sensations as Chezhin exploits mechanisms of perception, alogism, absurdity, logic, and direct and reverse sense-formation. Take, for example, the sheet Why am I not Fond of Moscow? At the top of this piece Chezhin has placed a photographic trick – a superimposition of o­ne of Chechulin’s skyscrapers and a spreading birch tree. At the bottom, under the beautiful pattern formed by the branches of a shrub, a dead dog is seen lying o­n the ground. What could give a clearer or more expressive impression of the artist’s lack of fondness for this city? The double denials, the absurd semantic situations, the fidelity of the image to reality, and the plastic coincidences /references: all this explodes correct, logical reasoning and judgement and finds an echo in the tonally correct way in which these pairs are perceived by the viewer. This is true of other sheets in the series too.

In his composite, multi-structure, cyclical work Transformations (1991-1997; cyclical in as much as a repetitive rhythm of beginning-end, beginning-end runs throughout) Chezhin sets up horizontal rows/films/moments. The heroes of these films are unchanging; what changes is the space around them, their surroundings, and the conditions governing the game or existence in which they are taking part. For example, Chezhin photographs the granite sphere o­n the spit of Vasil’evsky Island from all sides. And, seen from every side, the sphere is a sphere, but the space in which it is set changes dramatically round about – from ripples o­n water to architectural landscape.There could be no better illustration of Matyushin’s theory of ‘expanded looking’. Or take the sequence of clocks(street mechanisms/objects) photographed at particular moments in time. Here the main character is time and its attributes – dials, hands, and the structures that encase clock mechanisms. Or the subject could be seen as a film sequence: road-legs-road. And so o­n. In this composite work each line is a question whose resolution is possible o­nly for the given artist; a question/problem, moreover, which is to be dealt with not so much by resolving it as by living it through. Here you will find all the eternal questions posed by art in the 20th century: identification of o­neself and the world in o­neself; cognition of o­neself and the outside world; examination of the basic categories for constructing (and creating) the reality of o­ne’s embodiment; the main questions of life and eternity; play in accordance with the laws of existence and contexts for such play; incidentalness and regularity. Finally, this work succeeds in personifying a sense of change in time and space and in space in time.

The photographic world created by the photographer and artist Andrey Chezhin likewise has room for the art of the comic strip, for a physiognomic constructor, for St Petersburg-as-city-and-text, and for geometric studies a la Esher. This world is vast, paradoxical, sometimes alogical (from the point of view of the ordinary person) – but fascinating. It is a space that acts like a vortex: you o­nly have to take the first step in its direction, become a little interested, and you find yourself unable to stop looking, you lose your way out as you blunder about the labyrinth of the artist’s consciousness, jumping from level to level, from o­ne series of works to another, colliding with enigmas, laws, traps set by the carefully watching artist – and you gradually come to realize that the main hero of Chezhin’s works is time. Time for him is an important category by which we get to know – and record – the world. It divides into seconds, moments, instants, units of experience. Time sets like a sticky, viscous mass or flows freely like a homogeneous substance – liquid, elastic, fluid. In the Self-Portraits of 1988-1997 time is an existential substance, an attribute of history and of the historical development of society and of man as representative of this society and as a part of its culture. The artist is able to move about in time; and this becomes o­ne of the ludic features of his work (the presence of the physical in real and non-real space; the artist’s almost comic right to choose his own contemporaries – and their deeds – for himself). Likewise, he is able to impose simultaneity o­n events which are separated in time, as in the works Group Self-Portrait (1994) and Visiting Bulla (1994).

Time for Andrey Chezhin is expressed in specific objects. In his hands it is something with clearly marked, definite boundaries. These boundaries, though, are in the dimension not of man, but of history, in the specific time/happening of a given event in the history of this country and in abstract time in general, in the archaic, timeless, stagnant changelessness of man’s presence in the world as he sets about discovering his own dimension. For Chezhin even today time is divided up into the smallest elements/units that flash past seen through a train window or o­n the screen of a television, computer, or other chronometric miracle of the kind that devours human time, genius, and intuition.

It is the movement of time that defines the characteristic space of Chezhin’s works. In them space is real at every unit of time, but unreal, phantasmagoric, spectral at each post-unit of time-after-this-moment.

Space perceived, experienced, and recorded by equipment and man during the passing of time is in the power of the artist. This space changes at every moment of the advance of time, at every moment that this time is experienced by man, through the experiencing of this time in this space. The artist confronts the viewer not with the deformation of space, but with space that is changed over an extensive stretch of time.

There is nothing accidental in Chezhin’s choice of compositional structure for his works. As a rule, they are composite structures that show man through multiplicity (e.g. Group Portrait or Transformations). The framework of these pieces is a living structure whose active influence is felt o­nly when its various elements form a semantic, plastic link with o­ne another. This link then becomes sensible; the elements of the structure feed and fuel o­ne another.

Time, space, man, object, play are the perpetual engines that drive the Petersburg photographer Andrey Chezhin’s interest in attaining an equilibrium in the relation between ‘the external world’ and‘the world in o­neself’. The artist uses his craft and photography as instruments. The photographer Andrey Chezhin is an artist of the end of the 20th century, the heyday of Postmodernism.

 

Anime reviews: Soul Eater

“Soul Eater” is a recently developed Japanese anime series that is directed by Takuya Igarasahi and developed by Bones. It was licensed by Media Fantasy and Dentsu while being aired on the TV Tokyo network. The first episode of Soul Eater aired on Monday, April 7 of 2008. This is adapted from the ongoing manga that has been authored by Atsushi Okubo.

It’s a supernatural action themed anime with plenty of comedy involved. After watching the first episode of the anime, I was pretty satisfied. Personally, I thought Soul Eater was pretty funny.

The setting takes place in possible some alternate world with a Halloween feel of things. Soul Eater revolves around the world of witches and shinigami. Shinigami in Japan means the personification of death. The name had come from Europe during the Meiji Era. In short, a shinigami means either a soul reaper or a grim reaper.

The Soul Eater series is set in the Shinigami technical school for weapon meisters. Meisters are students training to be shinigami in the future. Its main story focuses on three groups of weapon meisters and their human weapon counterparts. In short, a meister has at least one or two humans at his/her side that can transform into a weapon.

Their aim is make their human weapons into a “Death Scythe” which is fit for use by the shinigami. The Death Scythe is the signature weapon of the Grim Reaper; which in Western culture personifies the angel of death. In order to make their weapons into Death Scythes, the meisters must collect ninety-nine souls of evil humans and one witch. However, it does not matter if the witch is good or bad.

The main meisters are Maka Alban with her companion Soul Eater or “Soul” that transforms into a scythe, Black Star with his companion Tsubaki who can transform into a variety of ninja weapons, and Death The Kid with his companions Patty and Liz that can transform into a set of handguns. Though they can transform into weapons, the meisters’ companions do have personalities of their own.

In humorously focuses on them having to collect those required souls. Each of the meisters have their own stories.

Interestingly enough, Shinigami-sama or the “Grim Reaper” is present. He is the most powerful character in Soul Eater. Maka’s father is the Grim Reaper’s Death Scythe.

It would look as the series focuses on Maka and Soul as they have to start from square one again. They had obtained the souls of ninety-nine evil humans but had mistaken Blair for a witch. It turns out that Blair was a cat with magical powers that could take on human form. The mistake had forced Maka and Soul to start from square one all over again.

So far, Soul Eater is an interesting anime with a pretty funny storyline.

 

Michael Bay: Destroying our childhoods? – Part 2

I love movies. I especially love movies with a lot of action, a lot of explosions, and in your face gunfire. Michael Bay brings that to every single one of his movies. In fact, he is one of my favorite directors of all time. So when I think of him destroying our childhoods, I examine the idea very closely.

I, personally, was never a fan of the original Transformers toys or animation series, although I have nothing against it. I realize there are a lot of people out there that had a love affair with the shows and I respect their right to that. I don’t, however, think Michael Bay destroyed our childhoods by taking the series and making it into a killer action flick.

The goal was to reinvent the series and bring new ideas to the table. The goal wasn’t to take something many people loved and destroy it as a franchise. Sure, there are going to be people that aren’t satisfied with the film, as with all film adaptations of animations and comic book series’. But they did their best to stay true to the original stories while adding where they felt it lacked entertainment value, or just simply improving on the original ideas.

I was anything but dissatisfied with the Transformers movie. And I am eager to see the next installment in the series. No one is trying to destroy your childhoods or take away the things you cherish most. As a filmmaker Michael Bay brings his version, his vision, and his ideas to the big screen. Bay holds a deep respect for the original creators and the big time fans of the Transformers series. He in no way wishes to take away from their passion for such an intelligently crafted series.

If you feel that Michael Bay has ruined your childhood or done damage to the Transformers name, then you should take another look at yourself, and realize what he has done for the series. Transformers has become one of the highest grossing films of all time, due solely to Bay’s ability to tactfully bring the idea to the big screen. Adapting to youth culture and the era we live in, Michael Bay changed it to fit the times. There was never any intention to insult your favored version of the story. You are welcome to that.

Simply put, No, Michael Bay is not destroying our childhoods. He understands and respects how you feel along with the others involved in bringing the series to screen. Sure, he may have changed a few things. But what makes it so bad? How has his version negatively affected your childhood? It hasn’t. In fact, there is no way it could have. Those memories you have and the love you share for Transformers is still there, and Michael Bay nor anyone else can do anything to change that.

 

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 73

The plot was truly in-depth. In this day and age there are not many new or original ideas left to choose from, this proves that there are still some jewels left in the industry and there is still a reason to pay those crazy theater prices.

Superb performance, plain and simple. In today’s day and age you see stars in big movies not because of there ability, but because of there name value. Not so in this one. The lines convinced me and really achieved the main goal of a movie. This to me is to bring the person watching the movie into the movie, to put the viewer into the movie. Not only would I see this movie again, I would look for movies with the same people in it, and that, my friend, is the purpose behind good acting.

The chemistry between the actors in this movie was undeniable. There was just that undeniable, intangible quality about this movie that just hit me like a ton of bricks. I admit it might just be me, because I was holding myself back from screaming at the screen. That is, as I’ve said before, what movies are supposed to do, to put you in the picture. To make you feel as if you are the protagonist, and maybe even sometimes the antagonist.

Supporting cast is usually over shadowed, as they should be. Here me out. In this movie especially, the supporting cast fulfilled there role as being great character actors and great is a word that I do not use all too often. They worked there angle and did not seem to upstage the main actors. Really a refreshing taste of good sense in an industry that has been lacking in it for so very long.

Great producing, my hat is off to whoever came up with this one! Seriously, I was not expecting this.

Special effects where wonderful and unique.

Although this may soon become over played with sequel after sequel, I will always enjoy watching the original, kinda like the batman series. There really isnt much in the last few ones, but the first is still amazing 20 years later.

 

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 72

Like many women of the world, I agreed to go and see this film under the pretence that my somewhat regressed boyfriend was hell bent on seeing it. However, secretly, I had been looking forward to seeing this since the first advert releases. And I was not disappointed.

It is an overarching phrase, too widely used, but this film truly does have something for everyone. From slick actions sequences and performances that are only robotic in physicality, it is a thoroughly enjoyable film from start to finish that doesn’t let up, and has left room for a sequel.

Shia LaBoeuf, of Even Stevens fame, takes the lead as troubled young teenager Sam Witwicky, a young man with relentless girl troubles, popularity issues, car troubles, just about the most loveably embarrassing parents you could hope to find in film history, and not to mention a mission to save the world, on top of it all. Though new to Hollywood, he manages to handle his own and is not outshone by the presence of formidable, twenty foot robots, with his perfect comic timing and believable portrayal of a frustrated and awkward adolescent. And, although slightly young, he provides the women watching with some definite potential in the hearthrob stakes with his boy-next-door looks and quirky personality.

Megan Fox, also part of the new influx of young Hollywood, gives a feisty and strong performance in support of LaBoeuf as popular socialite-type Mikaela Banes, adding real depth to a character that could so easily have been a two-dimensional airhead. Despite that, she has her moments of undeniable foxiness, which are definitely in there as a bit of eye candy for the boys. However, she is not hateable for this reason, because of the performance and storyline delivered, and manages to build a definite relationship with the women in the audience. Who hasn’t at some point fallen for the class geek, or someone we’re told we shouldn’t go for?

But then there are the robots, who, despite excellent human performances, do undeniably steal the show with their breathtaking graphic prowess; the graphics team in this film have certainly gone all out, and it has paid off hugely. From Optimus Prime to Megatron, each robot has its own unique identity, and manages to develop a rapport with the audience, with particular reference to the robot Bumblebee and a very moving sequence involving him. There were certainly tears in the eyes of every true Transformers fan in the showing I saw, male and female alike. They are beautifully crafted, and definitely tip the balance, making this film an immediate success and immediately liked.

With witty humour, hilarious moments that we can all relate to, slick action sequences that simply don’t let up, and just about destroy everything in their way across astonishing sky and landscapes, characters, both flesh and metal, that help to form a film that doesn’t rely purely on the action and amazing graphics like other films have done, and a well-structured storyline that is extremely well-written, this film truly succeeds as a tribute to the original series and its nostalgic, iconic status. My only criticism is that some main characters, such as Megatron, are in it very little, which will disappoint many fans and, in my opinion, it’s a bit long. Also, some sequences seem a bit pointless, which can be slightly offputting to the story but, if you bear with it, the film is entirely worth it as a whole.

If you were not a fan before, after seeing this film you will have no other choice but to become one.

 

Testimonies: Life of an anime fan

I’m 30 right now. I grew up on all of the classic 80’s cartoons many of us loved then and still enjoy now- Transformers, Voltron, He-Man and so forth. What I didn’t realize when I watched 3 in particular- Transformers, Robotech, and Voltron, that it was anime. Animation from Japan, also called Japanimation.

I learned of this during the 90’s when I began to watch Sailor moon as well as the three classic series I mentioned earlier on reruns on Sci-Fi or Cartoon Network. When one of my friends told me of this and showed me a few website, it was like a whole new alien world was opened up to me. I discovered Voltron was an anime, Transformers was adapted from the Japanese as well, and Robotech was actually a combination of three totally unrelated series brought together as one for American audiences.

Back then I also learned of many of the changes and cuts to scenes and even entire episodes of series that aired in the 90’s due to censorships on the internet. Before anime was as big as it is now, many things that could be taken the wrong way were censored or just removed, due to censorship here.

I began looking for other series and discovered the famed Chinatown- home of bootlegs galore and 6th generation subtitled videos. More worlds opened to me, as well as more anime being shown on cable channels.

Looking back, I see I discovered anime accidentally, as many of my friends around the same age as me did and I’m glad for it.

 

Anime reviews: D.N. Angel

“D.N.Angel” is a popular anime series that was created by a Japanese company called Dentsu with ADV Films acquiring the North American license. The series lasts for twenty-six episodes. It revolves around a young boy named Daisuke Niwa who lives in a small town and is infatuated with a fellow school girl named Risa Harada. However, Risa only thinks of Daisuke as her only best friend. But his mother and grandfather explain that there’s a secret about Daisuke. However, Daisuke himself doesn’t even know about the secret. It also seems that his family seems to be well versed in magic.

Humorously, Daisuke’s household is booby trapped as a means of training. But it’s revealed that Daisuke has a genetic trait that causes him to transform into a legendary thief known as Phantom Dark. It’s revealed that the Niwa have been thieves and the Phantom Dark genes are a trait that is passed down from Niwa male to male. It’s revealed that Daisuke has to steal an artifact to transform back to normal. With the family pet named With, Daisuke as Dark sprouts black wings that allow him to fly. But Daisuke doesn’t have control when Dark emerges as he has a mind of his own.

It’s also reviewed that the entity is passed to each male generation of the Niwa family at the fourteen. However, it wasn’t the case forty years prior as the grandfather had a daughter. There was no male offspring as females cannot transform into Phantom Dark. But the Harada sisters tend to have an interesting role to play as Riku Harada is attracted to Daisuke while Risa is attracted to Phantom Dark.

In D.N.Angel, Phantom Dark is a legend with a fan base. However, it is revealed that Phantom Dark has a rival in the form of Daisuke’s classmate Satoshi Hiwatari but is really a police commander. As a police officer, Satoshi charged with the task of capturing and arresting Phantom Dark. The family legacy is similar yet different as his real surname is Hikari. The legacy is that Satoshi transforms into Krad who is the homicidal counterpart to Phantom Dark. Krad possesses white angelic wings that contract to Daisuke’s black wings.

It’s the legacy of the Hikari family to capture Dark. While Daisuke tries to control Dark, Satoshi is trying to control Krad. Despite this, Daisuke continues to pull all sorts of heists as his family explains that these artifacts hold special powers.

Interestingly enough, Riku and Risa do not know that both Daisuke and Dark are the same person. However, when Daisuke thinks of Risa, he transforms into Dark.

D.N.Angel has an interesting mix of romance, fantasy, drama, and comedy. At first, I thought it was going to be a pretty violent series as D.N.Angel is short for “Devil ‘n’ Angel.”

The romance angle along with the game of cat and mouse are the driving forces of D.N.Angel. But the romance angel plays the biggest role in the conflict between Daisuke and Dark. In personality, the two of them contract while Dark is very perverted while Daisuke is the more decent individual.

One can possibly relate the cat and mouse game to another popular series called “Death Note”. However, the cat and mouse game revolves around stealing valuable piece of artwork versus killing people off in Death Note. But, the driving force and inspiration behind D.N.Angel is interesting enough.

It’s unknown when D.N.Angel will be aired on TV in North America. Shopping for the series is very difficult in itself as well. The series is more comedic than action packed. Just about anybody can appreciate D.N.Angel. If you’re into chick flicks and romance, you may enjoy D.N.Angel.

For those anticipating D.N.Angel to be aired in North America, keep your fingers crossed.

 

Movie reviews: The Transformers (2007) – Part 67

Michael Bay may just be the most successful panhandler in the history of time. He will not stop sweeping his camera, not even for a moment to read or revise the script. Transformers was a simple animated series, but at least it made sense and eventually ended. This adaptation does not make sense, though it undoubtedly will make more dollars than Gone With the Wind, which is where it should go.

It makes the mistakes of many modern summer tentpoles – it panders to a marketer’s idea of every possible market: There’s a bit for the kids, a part for the dads, a gear for the hardcore fans, and even a spare cog for the mothers who bother to see it. All those parts transform into a towering wreck of metal with too many stories and not enough story. Aliens invade; Some are friendly, some are not; War begins; An innocent boy and his girl are caught in the middle; great story on paper, but the only paper it was on was the poster.

The film barely gets off the ground with the action packed B-story of Tyrese Gibson’s platoon. An A.I. zombie helicopter, reported shot-down, goes rogue in the high desert and the world goes on high alert. The opening action is an accurate harbinger of the excellent CG and mediocre choreography to slightly vault the rest of the film. I couldn’t tell a propeller from a rotor from a credit sequence. And after anything transforms, I’m completely lost in the mech-melee mix. Good thing the inept government steps in to clear things up. Someone, Jar Jar Soundwave, hacks into the Pentagon’s mainframe. So Jon Voight arrests some random hackers to help at anything but arresting the audience.

Meanwhile back in the 80s, a teen boy loves a girl and a car. Enter protagonist, finally. Shia LeBeouf shows up just in time to get his first auto, bought by his dad’s low-limit credit card, charged with a a high-level mysterious power – it’s a transformer. This A-story safely grounds the dead-spinning film, which should have started here and ended with the story of how the Transformers came to be and came to be on Earth. But Spielberg spread his thin veneer of mastery over the master copy by adding in a military B-story for the military B-story, a hacker-y C-story, and, of course, an archeological dig F-story that looks like a DVD bogus feature from National Treasure. And we’re left to transform the incompatible pieces of a film into something we want to like, which may explain why you do.

Somewhere in the mess of the movie, Shia gets the girl, Tyrese

 

Book Reviews: Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer – Part 2

A dream transformed into a bestseller, Twilight (written by Stephenie Meyer) has become a phenomenon among teens and adults all across the world. Meyer, who is a Mormon, captured such a complicated love story and made it come to life.

The main character and narrator of the book is 17 year old Bella Swan. When the book opens up, Bella is in Phoenix about to get on a plane to Washington. She has chosen to leave her mom (Renee) and live with her father (Charlie). She really doesn’t know why she has chosen to live with her father, but she feels its just something she must do. She boards the plane and then arrives in Washington, where she is met by Charlie and driven to the small and rainy town of Forks.

Bella settles in her “new” house, goes to sleep, and wakes up the next day for school. She isn’t real excited about it, but wants to get out of the house. She gets into the red truck that Charlie had gotten her, and drives to school. At school is where she meets the second main character of the book, Edward Cullen. She notices that him and his siblings are “outcasts” in the school but doesn’t quite grasp how that’s possible. To her they are the most beautiful people in the world. What she doesn’t know is that the Cullens are actually a clan of vampires, unique vampires at that. They are unique in the vampire world because they choose to abstain from drinking human blood. They call themselves “vegetarians” because they only go after animal blood.

After seeing Edward from across the cafeteria, Bella goes off to Biology. When she walks in all the chairs are filled, with the exception of one, the one right next to Edward. When she sits down next to him all the muscles in his body seem to tense, it looks like he’s holding his breath, and he angles the chair away from her. She can’t understand what about her repulses him like this. She smells her hair and thinks about everything, but nothing seems to click.

To turn this long love story short, Bella finds out that Edward is indeed a vampire, they fall in love, she meets his vampire family, and then she gets tracked by a nomad vampire who is out for nothing more than the victory of killing her.

This book has got to be one of the best love stories since Shakespeare. The words are magic on paper. Stephenie Meyer is an amazing writer who knows how to appeal to her audience. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read, and even some who don’t.

 

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