The circle is now complete; what was first announced almost a year ago has finally come to fruition. The reformation of Attract Mode!
Adam is perhaps the one best suited to give the official story. Also, that thing I kept I keep tiptoeing around? Can finally spill the beans.
In just a few short weeks, in Seattle, at PAX Prime, where 2.0 finally first fond its roots, is where we’ll be teaming up with our (business) partners in crime to throw a little party…
Remember that big announcement I was hoping to make a few days back? It’s finally happening tomorrow! Plus things in general are kicking into high gear, hence why this weekend was my last chance to mostly kick back and relax. So how was it spent?
Optimus Prime With His Head Cut Off
Living in New York City has its perks. Like how it’s every cinephile’s paradise; you won’t find a greater selection of movies playing, and catering to such a diverse audience, anywhere on this planet. Period. From mainstream hits, to foreign/indie/underground fare, plus beloved classics from yesterday. The options at any given moment is dizzying.
It’s been especially crazy as of late; both the IFC Center and Lincoln Center’s weekend midnight showings have been unbelievable. In the past six months alone I’ve enjoyed The Blue Brothers, Big Trouble In Little China, and Return To Oz, to name just a few. But there’s been one theater I’ve been recommended regularly by pals, and had yet to experience: the Nighthawk.
This past Friday night was a slightly after midnight screening of the original Transformers The Movie, a 35mm print no less. Under normal circumstances, reliving the biggest cinematic cornerstone of my childhood (even more than Star Wars) in its proper format would have been a no-brainer. But in this case, I had reservations. Why? Because the Nighthawk is in the heart of Williamsburg (lulz). And the verdict?
I like the idea behind the place: a theater that not only shows offbeat movies, but has table service. And complaining about the antics of grade A, trustafarian douchebags, especially at a midnight screening, admittedly sounds silly. Actually, the drunk chick who kept yelling during previews and trying to be all MST3K, but whose pop culture references were no older than 2008, was actually the least offensive.
Because she mostly shut up when the movie started. But not the three guys down the row who had to recite every. single. line. Was tolerable the first 15 minutes, but after about 50? Jesus Christ. Thankfully the couple between us (who I’ve seen at NYAFF screenings; they appear to be cool people) told them to shut the f*ck eventually.
Then you had the numerous dipsh*ts who kept taking pictures of the movie screen. I like Instagram too, but give me a break. The fact that someone kept on using his/her flash gave me the most douche-chills. But my biggest beef was actually with the theater. Specifically, their inability to properly project the film itself. Apparently they lack the means to show anything that’s 4:3. Extremely odd for a small/art house theater.
I asked what the deal was and got a pretty semi-nonsensical explanation, but didn’t feel like getting into a whole conversation in the middle of the movie. All I know is, as a kid, I sure as hell didn’t remember the tops of everyone’s heads being lopped off. On the plus side, their staff is friendly, the drinks very strong, and I GOT TO THE ANIMATED TRANSFORMERS MOVIE ON THE BIG SCREEN IN 2012, so the night wasn’t a total wash.
UPDATE: A few friends have been confused by me citing Transformers‘s aspect ratio as being 4:3, which was the standard canvas view for television content, before everything went HD and letterboxed, similar to film’s aspect ratio. Mostly because of the DVD/Blu-ray release from a few years ago, which finally gave us all a widescreen version. The thing is, information is actually withheld and not added in that instance.
I naturally assumed that the original theater prints were also 4:3. But as Steve point out, they were actually 16:9 back then. As noted here (which explains everything far clearer than just did). And that makes total sense: why would theater operators go through the trouble of making accommodating a 4:3 field of vision, for some throw away kids movie?
That being said, the Nighthawk still messed up: a significant portion of the image was being projected off the screen, at the very top (again, everyones heads’ were cut off). It was most telling during the opening credits; instead of the text being dead in the middle of the image (which is the case for both the 4:3 and 16:9 versions), it was in the top 15% of the screen that night.
Furthermore, you also got the sense that the image was zoomed in. Especially during close ups; everything was slightly blurry. You could see lots of detail… at times, too much. Once more, the film was just projected improperly.
An Evening With The “Ancient One” and “Venus De Mutor”
Thankfully the following night completely devoid of such nonsense. Had dinner with Joe and June, whom I haven’t seen in ages, in their neck of the woods. Then from Harlem, it was off to Carol Gardens, the MF Gallery to exact. For the Midnight Monster Meltdown opening, featuring the art of Joanna Mulder and Frank Russo. Because I ranted and raved for far too long about Friday night, here’s Saturday night in mostly pictures?
Though I must say that last night was perhaps the muggiest and grossest evening this entire summer. Which meant plenty of trips to the bodega next door; not just for water, but their assortment of choice DVDs?
Happy Boy’s migraine?
I was dying to know who this guy was, but I also didn’t want to ask?
Donnie Dark O’s
So the reason why Joe and June have been incognito is because they’ve been busy running the Wax Eye empire. And I was lucky enough to be given a nice little care package, the latest fruits of their labor: Cereal Killers Series 2!
As with Series 1, it combines two things that we all know and love? breakfast cereal and horror movie icons. And Series 2 continues the traditional, and in many ways improves upon it!
Once again, you have three fun size boxes, each with 20 cards, with 60 cards total, along with gumballs that are fashioned after three eyeballs?
Here are just a few of my favorites?
? When Joe first showed me the concept sketches for both Pet Semaberry Crunch and Cape Fearios, I pretty much couldn’t stop laughing for about ten minutes!
The best part about Series 2 is how, in addition to mini cereal 3 pack, they’re being sold in traditional packs as well! Be sure to keep your eye out of them (they can be found at Toys R Us, among other places). Or simply order them directly from Joe and June!
Well, it’s August 1st. And I had planned on making a big announcement today! But due to an unforeseen delay (some fine-tuning, behind the scenes, basically) it will have to wait, just a tiny bit more. I hope! But hey, now’s a good time to post two final Asian movie reviews for the summer, right?
Rent-A-Cat
In the end, I wasn’t able to give Japan Cuts nearly the amount of time as I would have liked. The timing of this year’s NYAFF could not have been better; I was between certain things and could afford the luxury of seeing three different Asian flicks in one day, for multiple days in a row. But in the past two weeks, I simply got very busy (again, you’ll all learn why soon enough), yet there was no way in hell I was going to miss something called Rent-A-Cat. I knew almost nothing going in, but had my guesses, along with a considerable degree of expectations, due to the title alone. Which were all met handily; if you like cats (which is a silly question; if you’re reading this, your an internet regular, and who amongst us doesn’t like them>?), then you absolutely NEED to see this film. It’s filled to the brim with you-know-what; they all gravitate towards Sayoko, whose basically your typical, garden variety crazy cat woman. But because Sayoko’s also a Japanese cutie, she’s not nearly as demented or horrific as her American equivalents.
Sayoko is an eccentric, loner type (gee, big shocker) who wants to help lonely people out by lending her cats to them, since they’re the key to happiness. Even though how she herself is pretty lonesome. The film is comprised of four short vignettes, which all follow the same basic structure: Sayoko encounters someone who needs a cat for whatever reason, we see the positive effect that said felines has, and finally Sayoko encountering said person again, to witness (or deal with) the aftermath. First is an old woman who could really use something to fill the hole in her heart, which comes in the form of an older tabby that resembles a long lost friend. The second is a family guy who is away from his family, due to business, and who is also bummed because his daughter says he smells “like an old man” (or just simply stinks), but a kitten that loves smelly stuff becomes his new best friend. Third is a bored (and lonely) woman who works at a rent a car shop, and the fourth is a guy that Sayoko runs into, and whom she refuses to do business with due to her being embarrassed (and possibly also having a crush on him).
Did I mentioned the wacky, cross-dressing next door neighbor, who at the end of each episode, tells Sayoko right her in face that she’s destined to die a lonely woman, because she’s a total pathetic loser? There’s that too. But yeah, there’s no overarching narrative that unifies everything or the like. Again, just a bunch of random, self-contained episodes; Rent-A-Cat definitely feels like a television show and most definitely should be. After the screening, director Naoko Ogigami hit the stage to answer a few questions. Making the movie was a real challenge; aside from being an independent filmmaker in Japan, Ogigami is a woman. Plus, she was pregnant at the time, and “cats cannot be told what to do”. But she did note that there was an audition process for the movie. It’s highly recommended, but even if it wasn’t, some of you would have tracked it down anyway. Since, you know, cats.
Space Battleship Yamato
The original Space Battleship Yamato anime was something I watched as a kid, way back in South Korea. Though I ended up watching more of the American version (Star Blazers) after arriving the US, which I therefore have a far stronger emotional bond to. Plus none of that can compare to the original Transformers anyway. But that’s neither here nor there; I went into the live action version with zero expectations, and the assumption that it would suck like most live-action adaptations of anime and manga generally suck big time. And it most certainly does.
In the future, aliens are showering the Earth with meteors that cause radiation to fill the air, forcing humans to go underground. Unfortunately they can’t last down there forever, nor can they go toe to toe with the vastly more powerful Gamilas as they are called. But one day a strange object falls from the sky; in the original cartoon, it’s an alien hottie, and here it’s just a foreign object. A total bummer. On the plus side, the person who stumbles across it, Kodai, our hero of the story, establishes early on that his best friend is his PDA with Siri-like capabilities. And that was pretty funny. Anyhow, the object contains plans for a warp engine that will allow interstellar travel, plus a weapon that can offer humans a reasonable chance against their alien overloards. With mankind given just one year left, the final spaceship left in the fleet (is built upon an actual WW2 battleship) is sent to the locate source of the capsule, which supposedly contains the key to earth’s salvation. Volunteers are asked to be part of the mission, and Kodai signs up. Mostly to see the captain, Okita, eye to eye; he was the a**hole that allowed his older brother to perish in battle. But Kodai learns quickly that Okita is a great man after-all. Too quickly in fact. We also discover that Okita’s health is declining, so he chooses Kodai to be the new ship’s captain. Even though he was part of the crew for literally 15 minutes.
The basic problem is its attempt at retelling everything that happened in the first season in just two hours. There have been numerous films that attempt to cover the bulk of its source material, whether it be a TV show or comic book, in an expedited manner. And while certainly tricky, it’s certainly possible (Avengers immediately comes to mind). But Space Battleship Yamato‘s attempt is pure torture. Character development is nonexistent; you have a few interesting personalities, like the tsundere squadron leader, a ditzy doctor who loves sake and cats, plus even the captain himself is a real bad ass in the cartoon. All rendered cliched and predictable thanks to time constraints. And because so much is happening so quickly, you have massive leaps in logic that damn near approaches Prometheus-levels of stupidity. But the best part is how everything comes to a screeching halt at the very end; it would seem that the director wanted to re-create all the tearful moments of pathos that punctuated the end of the series, which was originally spread across several episodes, but presented all together in a 20 minute long death scene that caused me to seriously hold back laughter in the movie theater. At least the death of the PDA was somewhat genuinely touching. Once again, it’s true: when Tokyo tried to be like Hollywood, the results is always a disaster.
NYAFF & Japan Cuts 2012 Recap, Side B
Man, what a way to end things on, but otherwise, my summer of Asian cinema has been otherwise awesome! Building of my first list, here’s the second half…
In the end, the 2012 New York Asian Film Festival was one of the its strongest showings yet. Thankfully, they’ve stopped chasing the Tokyo Gore Police ghost with one of the most varied selections yet. It also helps that Hong Kong cinema has had made a majore comeback. Can’t wait for next year, and thanks to everyone at NYAFF, Lincoln Center, and Japan Society for allowing me to be their guest! Can’t wait for next year.
UPDATE: Just got an email from the NYAFF, and they state that the 2012 Audience Award goes to Ace Attorney! Hardly a shocker, but a deserving winner nonetheless.
Odds & Ends
Anyway, before signing off, some random odds & ends:
- So I went to see Rent-A-Cat with Kyle, the biggest cat fancier that I personally know. He loved it of course. Afterwards we went to Udon West for some curry rice, and outside I spotted this?
Why yes I would love to eat discount sushi till 2:30am this Friday night with a bunch of animu dorks, thank you very much! Oh, and I also took this a few weeks prior, on route to Gyo I believe?
- Remember my mention of Game Play 2012 from last time? Well, my report is finally up. And yes, the comments are indeed hilarious?
- Guess what arrived in my very tiny mailbox just the other day? Why, my Kickstarter rewards from supporting Venus Patrol, that’s what! It was both a reason to get happy and angry. On the plus side, the Mikko Walamies shirt is absolutely gorgeous?
But as noted, my mail box is very small. Hence why my idiot mail carrier had to work very hard to shove the Moon Grotto 7″ into inside, but he somehow managed. Which also ruined exp. -3?
Swear to God, literally 80% of the zines I order have all been mangled by my the mail person. And it’s not like I haven’t tried complaining? actually, more like begging for this madness to stop. But they don’t give a rat’s ass.
Does anyone remember last year, before TCAF 2011, when that one Postal nutjob threatened to destroy any mail for me that came his way, because he didn’t like my “attitude”? And how when I tried to report the guy, the local sheriff’s deputies literally told me to “f*ck off”? These are just a few of the reasons why I’m thinking of moving out of NYC (among several).
Thankfully, I already have a gem mint copy of the zine when I saw Mathew at TCAF 2012. As for the record, it’s not like I have any means to play it, but it still pisses me off. UPDATE: Brandon was nice enough to offer a replacement. What a swell guy! But I respectfully declined. Sure it’s a beautiful package, but again, that’s all it is. Besides, I can listen to the music thanks to the just released digital version!
- And finally, last night was a gathering for game journalists at Barcade. lulz. At least it was mostly filled with some halfway decent folks, even more so in some instances! Like Chris, who mentioned how he recently saw a video from Game Center CX/Retro Game Master‘s American debut at the NYAFF several moons ago, and how I was one of the people that was interviewed!
I did see the footage afterwards, but that version wasn’t dubbed in Japanese. But the one on Jenn Frank’s blog is, which can be seen here. Fun-fact: that dude next to me was on-hand to pitch his own American take on Game Center CX/Retro Game Master. He even gave me a copy and? well? it’s certainly unique, to put it mildly (perhaps one day I can share it).
UPDATE: Chris also turned me onto the follow: a YouTube channel in which guys goof on other people’s Let’s Play videos?
Sorry, but I just think you REALLY have to hate Let’s Play vids as much as I do to see the humor it in this. Anyhow, will be making a BIG announcement very soon; stay alert.
