keeping note

Even amidst the trend of remaking classics, no movie has been able to really take me back to the spirit and imagination of cartoons.

Speed Racer did it. Everything about this movie was cartoon. The images, the story, the excitement, the fun. The movie embodied the magical, whimsical, yet fun, thrilling, and simply comical spirit of cartoons. There’s no real way to describe it. It’s cartoon.

Artistically, it’s beautiful. Using every color in the crayon box and some of the coolest computer graphics, every image in the movie is as bold and alive as a kaleidoscope. Electrifying, visually breathtaking, and just plain stylish. It could have easily found success in art house/indie theatres.

As for the plot, it’s got depth to keep an adult entertained, continually throwing them back to the classic good and evil struggles of the cartoon and comic. Speed’s silly younger brother and monkey companion are a hilarious ride for kids. At the same time, the larger than life races with cars that physically shoot daggers and flip over each other keep adults and kids alike thrilled.

I love this movie. The not-so-stellar reviews are really unwarranted and dare I say pretentious views on pure brilliance and cartoon entertainment.

Sure, you won’t ever have to sit on your feet to see over the monster in front of you, the seats sort of recline if you push really hard, and the arm rest can disappear making that moment with your special someone all the more special. That doesn’t equal quality movie experience, though.

When I’m at a movie, I want to feel like the screen is so big that the actors might eat me. I want to feel like I’m looking up at this fantastic screen with larger than life everything. I want to hear that roll and flicker of the film reel in the back. There’s a reason I pay $8+. I want the whole movie theatre experience and stadium seating theatres just don’t cut it.

I’m deeply in love with the little theatre about 15 minutes away because it’s plain old movie theatre seating with stationary arm rests and an inclined floor. The screen takes up the entire wall and when watching a movie, it feels majestic. Okay, cheesy word, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

I wish these theatres could stay open forever, but sadly, the bigger stadium theatres are just crushing them. I would take the flat seats over stadium any day! Go out to a movie at one of theses and tell me you don’t love it.

Support these theatres! Keep them alive! I don’t know if I could continue to see movies if they all disappeared.

SDSU is less than a week away to finals, and it’s pretty damn stressful. The school is packed, which is annoying. I hate going in the library because there are no more open seats to study and half of the people in them are sleeping…geez people just go home.

Oh, and now the trolley is always packed and the school is crowded because people stopped ditching, as if coming to the last week of school is going to redeem them.

::sighs::

Anyway, I can’t focus in class anymore and my classes are all going off tangents. Yesterday, in my Eng 530 class they started a conversation on British longbows, and movies that involved them…it revealed to me that some of my classmates have “eh” movie tastes.

The one characters I’ve named “Quite Contrary”…she ALWAYS brings up movies as concrete detail to support her arguments…they’re type that you roll your eyes at because they’re re-runed on TBS or USA all the time…like “Pleasantville” or “Knights Tale”…or “Blockbusters” that everyone has watched, but are totally over…like “American Beauty”.

Below are the notes I took…enjoy…

In case you can’t read it it says:

“Quite Contrary and Guy that sits in front of me bring up the movie, “Troy,” for comparison. blah.

Then Guy in front of me then brings up Iron Man, because he just saw it and they mentioned the bow and arrow in the film I guess…I swear…collectively my class would have the blah-i-est Netflix ever.

We were talking about the British longbow and how the British would have won the revolution had they used that instead of rifles.

Which brought up the Elves in LOTR, who Quite Contrary thinks may have used British Long Arrows (I have no idea)…do you see what I’m saying about Netflix?

*Wait the professor just brought up 40 Year Old Virgin…I wouldn’t mind placing that in my Queue…but she’s the professor, of course she’d place above the curve.

BACK TO CHAUCER…”

When I’m bored, I go to Wikipedia.org. (Don’t ask me why, I just do.) And to make myself even nerdy-er, I look up anime. (Seriously, stop with the looks!) It may sound odd, but it’s actually a good way to avoid bad anime. (Well what I consider bad anime) You get to read a synopsis and find out if it has all the elements you want! Plus it’s a good way to avoid “wasting time” on anime. You all know what I’m taking about. The anime where you dedicate some major time watching, then at the end they all die. (I.e. Wolf’s Rain. Sorry to ruin it for you!)

On one of my recent trips to Wikipedia I decided to research Dragon Ball GT. The thought came to me when I was in my Pop Culture Japan class. We were learning about the author and what he based the story on so, I decided, since I had never seen GT I might as well look up what it’s about. Next, I end up stumbling upon an article about the upcoming 2009 Dragon Ball live action movie! After reading the article I wasn’t excited to see one of my favorite childhood cartoons come to life, instead, I felt a bit depressed. The cast list is a little odd. (Jamie Chung will be Chi Chi, you know her from Real Word: San Diego) Plus I feel this has the super potential to end up campy. I just can’t picture a real life Piccolo on the silver screen or Justin Chatwin as Goku.

Another film slated to become a live action movie is Ghost in the Shell. Variety released an article stating they have acquired the rights to this anime legend with the help of Steven Speilberg who is set to make it a live action 3-D movie. I’m sure this will be interesting, but I’m not so sure I’ll line up to see it. (Mostly because I wasn’t too fond of the animated movie.) However, I do feel that this movie will turn out really well because you have a big name director backed by a big studio.

I’m not saying that anime shouldn’t be turned into live action movies. (I’m actually very excited to see Speed Racer this summer.) But I’m just saying that you have to be careful because it has the potential to turn out incredibly bad! Does anyone even remember the live action DB from Japan?!?

P.S. There are some good live action dramas based off anime like Absolute Boyfriend!