So readers of this blog already know I’m an anime fan, and a ‘racing anime‘ fan in particular – assuming you can find it. Certainly the most notable racing anime is Initial D, and due to its long term manga/anime popularity, a live-action movie of the Initial D story came out in 2005. So the tofu-hauling teenage drift racer of Gunma Prefecture rides again, now in real life. How does it hold up?

Naturally one movie compared to 30+ manga issues and/or 3 anime series + some animated movies cannot be expected to capture the entire saga of the story – they wisely concentrate here on elements from seasons one and two. We see how Takumi became a drift expert (hauling tofu in the early dawn through the mountains for his dad’s business), how his dad is a retired racer (and expert in setting up the AE86 Takumi now drives for the deliveries) and how once the word gets out, other nearby racers immediately want to challenge Takumi (Nakazato from the Night Kids, Ryosuke Takahashi from the Red Suns, and Sudo from the Emperor team). Various races ensue, and (big surprise) Takumi wins – but like the anime, you root for him the whole time and on balance, it’s an entertaining movie.

A list of differences between the movie and the anime/manga can be seen here. I won’t go into them save to say I didn’t really like how they turned Takumi’s dad into a drunk – in the anime he’s just gruff and quiet, keeping largely to himself. I think here they were trying to show Takumi’s dad as frustrated by his wife leaving (this is never mentioned in the anime at all by comparison) so he drinks. I would have preferred more ‘racing expertise’ discussion and less of this flawed character aspect, it’s mostly just a distraction.

The racing is good, if somewhat on the brief side. The anime/manga naturally has the advantage of drawing out all the events that run up to the racing which the movie simply doesn’t have time to deal with, but they did a great job and the racing is definitely convincing. But the anime also draws out the races quite a bit, often times over multiple episodes, which would look unrealistic if done in live action, so that’s another reason it seems a lot shorter here.

The acting is good, although these are with one exception, all Hong Kong actors (only Anne Suzuki, playing Takumi’s girlfriend Mogi, is Japanese). They all do a good job but I missed the constant (many times silly) over-the-top posturing and dialog from the anime – that tends to increase the tension from the usually following race – here, that’s a bit lacking. But maybe Japanese teens aren’t really that crazy-intense in real life? Dunno.

Another somewhat missing element is the hyperactive background music of the anime during the racing scenes. Here, they largely play hip-hop style music throughout the movie, which is fine, but not quite the same. And I think that tends to slow down the impression of the racing somewhat as a result. But a nice touch was to try to replicate the offbeat and constantly changing camera angles during the race as otherwise seen in the anime – well done!

You can also watch the ‘making of’ via Youtube here – it has english subtitles, the dialog is in Chinese given the cast and crew. It’s clear they took the job of this movie very seriously and tried their best to make a good movie and not do it on the cheap. And, that they filmed in rural Japan gives it that extra look of truth, to me at least.

Check it out – it’s a good intro to Initial D, and will likely make you want to check out the anime or manga (or both).

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PS – there may be an Initial D ‘2’ in the near future – see here.

So we went over to The Big Picture in Redmond last night to check out a showing of Rush Time Machine. This is a DVD/Blu-Ray (they simply played it in the theater) of Rush‘s most recent Time Machine tour. As I have never seen them live, it was cool to see a complete show from start to finish, even if not actually in person.

And like other ‘vintage rock‘ shows we have seen recently, they did not disappoint. There is a reason why most bands still would give their eyeteeth to be able to play music like that. Even if they are pretty ‘on in years’ now (at the first intermission they said ‘we’re going to take a break now, because we’re like, ‘100’ – pretty funny) they can still bring the goods. Geddy‘s voice isn’t what it was, he mostly avoids the really high screechy stuff from the past, or sings it an octave lower – but he can still sing, unlike many (Ozzy being the chief culprit there). And as far as musicianship – whether or not you like Rush (and certainly there are many on both sides of THAT equation) you have to admit they can play rings around most bands even in their sleep. It’s simply amazing to watch them rock out. And unlike contemporaries such as The Police, who I would consider definitely equally skilled on guitar and drums, probably not bass though (sorry Sting) Rush’s songs lend themselves well to showcase those talents in song after song (The Police only have a few ‘jam’ songs as they were much more pop-oriented on the last few albums they did, plus they have nowhere near the catalog Rush does anyway).

This DVD is **definitely** worth watching, along with the recent Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage retrospective, which goes way back to the start up until just before the tour of this DVD. All in a good day’s viewing 🙂

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We were lucky enough to see a small screening of the new Fishbone biographical movie, Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone last night. The Central Cinema was hosting movies as part of the currently-running Langston Hughes African American Film Festival.

Having been a *huge* Fishbone fan most of the time I’ve lived in Seattle, I was stoked to hear about this movie several months ago – it came out in a Los Angeles film festival last June, but then only sporadically appeared in very limited showings since. It is now about to debut on DVD, Scarecrow is ordering it, etc. so I’m sure far more people will get to see it as is deserved.

It is a bittersweet tale, and several things are very apparent. Fishbone has been (and remains) a band that really cannot be defined by many/any musical categories. Not only do they combine elements of ska, metal, funk, reggae and other ridiculously diverse influences – but they simply do not compromise in this vision – in many ways to their own detriment. Naturally this works against them as far as Big Money Record Companies go – and there is notable discussion of this throughout the movie as you might expect – but it has also served to limit their audience longer term, unfortunately. As they note several times (directly and indirectly) – it is very weird to be a black band, singing pretty direct lyrics about the black and minority experience in America (beginning in Reagan’s America of the late 80’s when they were all just getting out of high school) and then gaining a predominantly white following? Just another example of the fairly unique (for better or for worse) Fishbone history.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I won’t give any more details – even if you don’t know anything about the band or may only vaguely remember them from their earlier approach to (real) stardom – the movie is definitely worth watching and I hope it really serves them to gain more fans because if there’s one band that has paid its dues many hundreds of times over, it’s Fishbone. Not only are they probably THE best band I’ve ever seen live – and I’m not the only one who says that by any means (the concert footage in the movie should help prove THAT – check out YouTube in the meantime) – but they have more talent they’ve forgotten about than most bands will ever understand, let alone come close to having!

There were some minor disappointments in the movie – Laurence Fishburne’s narration is way overbilled – he really doesn’t talk very much on balance and never appears in person – Tim Robbins only says about 2 mins of stuff if that (and John Cusack – WTF?) It was nice to see Flea and the various members of No Doubt pay their respects (because they DO owe Fishbone, big time) but all those bands have made a LOT more money and are predominantly white, pop-heavy bands that really took a lot less risks (and simply had a lot less to risk in the first place)?

I am really glad this movie came out and as noted before, I hope it helps their career, even if Norwood and Angelo are the only two originals left (shout to John Steward – drummer since 1999 – you rule man!) – this is one of the few bands that never compromised and has stayed true through thick and thin. Dr. Madd Vibe – we love ya – keep that Theremin rolling.

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Well, it was a long time in planning, but the big event(s) finally happened this past weekend – Kerewin‘s big 4.0 bday. And I am VERY happy to say everything was a big success and she had a great time. And there were even a few surprises along the way, which is always nice to pull off. Two of karri’s best friends came in from WAY out of town (NYC and AZ) and my sister from Boise, ID. Other friends trekked down from BC and all four corners of the Puget Sound area. For Portland, we had friends coming in from as far away as Hood River as well as the greater Portland area. THANK YOU to all for coming! 🙂 🙂 🙂

We had the first party here in Seattle on Sat. night at Kenyon Hall in West Seattle (great venue if you are looking for one for an event of your own). It was catered by the always-amazing, nearby Buddha Ruksa (best Thai in town!) and the Shiftless Layabout(s) were our band for the night. Hopefully both gained a bunch of new fans – the guests were constantly praising both all night and after.

Sunday am, we all piled in the car and blasted down to OR for the second party Sunday afternoon the 6th.

There are 4 pages of pics here – and even a couple MP4 movies – enjoy!

happy bday, Kerewin – love ya!

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So finally was able to watch my library copy of Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage. This is a documentary of the Rush story, from early-70’s beginnings to present (2010). It also has some bonus stuff on the second DVD, deleted scenes, and some rare concert footage from VERY early on (the original three playing at Toronto high schools, which at the time were the ‘tour’ given the band wasn’t 21 so not in bars).

All in all, this is a good show, and has a nice mix of fandom (e.g. other musicians talking about why Rush mattered to them or to music generally), musical history of the band (album histories and capturing a bit of events at each one) and sporadic concert footage spread throughout. While I could have done without Gene Simmons (is that guy in EVERY rock documentary these days or what?) his comments are actually restrained and kind of funny, and Geddy Lee also gives KISS their due in terms of how much they helped Rush early on.

One thing that is also noticeable is how nerdy a band they really are. They even joke about how early on, their fans were nearly all men. Then later on, still nearly all men. Only in more recent years have they seemed to gain female fans of any amount – which is good, but I doubt it had much effect on their musical direction or appeal – still way nerdy compared to most bands. They really don’t sing much, if at all, about the usual rock ‘topics’ – sex and drugs – something that got them a lot of crap from UFO while on tour in the UK/Europe (funny anecdotes from Geddy on that).

It’s also interesting to note how Alex/Geddy were the founders and have the history together all the way back to grade school, whereas despite Neil Peart having now been in the band around 40 years, he is still (jokingly) called ‘the new guy’, because he was the second (and only since) drummer. The sequences with him are somewhat different than the other two – he’s definitely a different breed of cat, much quieter – nice guy, but definitely more intense and a bit ‘brooding’ vs. the other two.

I knew that Neil’s daughter had passed away in a bad car accident while they were on tour many years ago, but didn’t know that his wife had passed on not long after too. What a terrible, sad experience – they relate how they thought it was the end of the band – they really didn’t do anything for almost 5 years before Neil came around and wanted to get things rolling again. I’m glad he came through it, but it sounds like it took a long, long time.

I think a couple additional things might have improved this film a bit, though. For one, I would have liked a closer look at their composition process – how do they sit down and come up with stuff, what does it look like? They talk about this a bit but not in real detail, more high-level.

Second, I know that Geddy and Alex write the music for the most part, and Neil writes the lyrics in many cases. How does his writing process work? He is a voracious reader, and it’s obvious his lyrics come from all that reading – but how was he ‘inspired’, etc.? While he’s a pretty private guy, at least a minimal conversation about it would have been pretty cool.

Also, some anecdotes about specific songs might have been neat – you can see a few in the liner notes on some albums (e.g. Red Barchetta is based on a sci-fi story, etc.) but say, where other songs come from? Some are obvious (LimeLight, Subdivisions, etc.) but others?

At any rate, it’s always interesting to see what the band guys are really like – are they ‘normal’ people, self-absorbed jerks, wankers, or? Rush are definitely the former, and have largely maintained cool heads throughout their long career – cheers to them!

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Well, the day finally arrived, and we saw TRON: Legacy tonight. Given that there’s already quite a few reviews out there (here, here, here, here and here for starters), I will add my two cents as well.

First, the good:

1) Music and effects are great. The look and feel of ‘the grid’ is as unique as ever (just like it was the first time around in 1982) and Daft Punk provide a great soundtrack. They apparently even got a cameo as the DJ’s in the nightclub where Sam Flynn and Quorra go to meet the mysterious ‘Zeus’ (who turns out to be a semi-albino Willy Wonka sans top hat, but I still liked him anyway). The light-cycle scenes are very cool, again, just like last time, and it was great to see the Recognizers get their moments in the sun again too (although they aren’t really as ‘malevolent’ as in the last film).

2) Jeff Bridges generally is good, although they don’t really give him enough to do IMHO. Yes, he’s the central character (in more ways than one) but barring the opening narration, we don’t see near enough inside his head – and that’s a real missed opportunity. And Bruce Boxleitner is even more in the same boat, given that he’s a sideman as before, despite being the namesake of the two movies (Tron).

On to what didn’t work as well:

1) On the one hand, I give them props for not making the movie into one action scene after another (a la the second and third Matrix movies) at the expense of storyline and character development. Despite what some of the reviewers above may think – the original TRON really tried – if you are paying attention while watching it, and had the benefit of growing up back then – to really imagine what it would be like to ‘live inside a computer’, and came up with a unique vision of that, which has influenced a LOT of movies since, the most obvious being The Matrix but there are plenty others.

But in attempting to get inside the characters more, you have give the audience more to go on. There is a scene where Sam talks to Quorra about Flynn’s book collection – but they don’t explain why she likes the books or thinks they are important? By the same token, yes, Clu (Flynn’s self-created perfectionist computer doppelganger) is Flynn’s opposite number (in misdirected megalomania) but even so, he’s never ‘evil’ the way the MCP and Dillinger were in the original. In that movie the MCP ultimately is calling the shots in BOTH the digital and human worlds at one point? The villains here just don’t compare in that respect.

2) Flynn’s hideout brings back a lot of Blade Runner (an original TRON contemporary, it was two years later, flopped about as badly at the time and since has influenced everyone else to an equal if not greater degree) in its look and feel to me. And the scene where Flynn, Quorra and Sam are eating dinner is reminiscent of near the end of 2001 where Discovery astronaut Dave Bowman is eating dinner/rapidly aging in the Louis XIV dining room – all that white on white.

3) As discussed with fellow moviegoers after seeing it, the big ‘Clu rally’ scene where he reveals his plans is right out of Lord of the Rings, with Christopher Lee rallying the Orcs and monsters to attack as they stamp their weapons and yell (not like this type of scene doesn’t happen at least once or twice in each LOTR movie, for that matter :)).

And this brings up my continual point about supervillains – why? When General Zod and his buddies kicked everyone’s ass in short order in Superman II, they were then seen lounging around the White House with nothing to do? They had already beaten all the lame humans, taken over the US (and of course by implication the world – helps when you make the movies in Hollywood that you can imply that) and are bored out of their gourds until Superman shows up to give them something to do?

So what was Clu going to do if he managed to pull an ‘Agent Smith’ and get back to the ‘real world’? Smith was similar – what was he planning on doing? After killing Neo and turning everyone in The Matrix into duplicates of himself, then what? Here there is lip service paid to Clu/Flynn’s vision of ‘perfecting the system’ – but they don’t really explain what that means or why it ultimately ‘twisted’ Clu in the end?

4) The scene of Flynn talking to Clu (near the end) about where things went wrong – I hate to point this out, but it really smacks of Keanu confronting Patrick Swayze at the end of Point Break, with the speech and how ‘Bodie’ can’t be caged, etc. – that movie is cornball from the word go (despite otherwise being great entertainment) – but if you agree with my point (and you may not), it makes Flynn’s self-confrontation somewhat less effective.

5) The son of the original movie’s Dillinger/bad guy is wasted here – they have but one scene with him (played by an uncredited Cillian Murphy, making the waste DOUBLE because he’s always such a great bad guy) – I was half-expecting a weird twist where it is shown that Dillinger’s son is ultimately behind Clu’s betrayal, not Flynn’s vision of perfection. And then it might have made some weird attempt by a ‘revived’ MCP worth trying in turn? In any case, it could have been very cool.

6) In an earlier post, I noted an article where apparently the Pixar guys were brought in to discuss plot and character with the director and writers. Not sure if it did any good here, or whether they actually took the suggestions and used them? To me, if someone like Brad Bird is giving you free advice on a movie – you TAKE it! It would be like being a newbie actor and having Dustin Hoffman, De Niro or similar in a bit part but on the set for a week or two – I’d be hitting them up or trying to learn by osmosis, hello? Just sayin’.

7) Yet another movie where the 3D is largely ‘meh’. I really don’t think it adds much of anything – you’re already in a huge screen, big sounds, special effects. etc. – it’s not like this is the Star Trek holodeck where you’re ‘in’ the action directly or something – I think the whole 3D thing is eventually going to go the way of the original Cinerama process, if more slowly.

8 ) It’s weird how much of the last 20 minutes or so of this movie are nearly identical to the first one. They have a big getaway on the Solar Sailor; the Recognizers and bad guys chase them; they get to the portal and have a big shootout. Here there is a bit of speeching at the expense of action (in the first one, Sark turns into a ‘giant’ (with the help of the MCP) and is about to crush Tron permanently when Flynn hacks the portal and ‘ends’ the MCP for good). If only the speech had told us more…..

Ultimately for a sequel like TRON, this is a good question to ask – how much of the original movie do you pay homage to while (trying, anyway) to craft a new story? Or do you? The recent Incredible Hulk movies (having seen none of them) were all but back to back remakes (notwithstanding the 70s TV series) within 5 years of one another?

All in all, I’m glad I saw it, but like so many movies (e.g. parts of Matrix 2 and most of Matrix 3, among others) – there’s a lot of missed opportunities here. It was definitely better than Avatar though, although it may have cost even more to make ($237M for Avatar vs. an est. $300M for TL)?

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Recent: We made it through about 45 min. of Hot Tub Time Machine tonight before giving up. Rob Corddry was just too much for me – he is really funny normally but the dialogue they gave him was just lame or mostly too over the top. Craig Robinson is great in The Office but here, not enough counterpoint to RC. The great John Cusack – hmm. I’ve seen him far funnier with better material (nearly all his early movies, yes they were 20 years ago I know!)…Hmmm….Dunno, just didn’t do it for us.

Not as recent: I haven’t seen a movie with Seth Rogen in it yet that was anywhere close to as good as The 40 Year Old Virgin barring his several cameos in Fanboys (see earlier post). Pineapple Express had all this build up when it came out, but I only made it about 25 mins. and gave up – Just too dumb. If you’re going to make a pot movie, you start with FUNNY pot humor and go from there – yeah, I’m talking about Cheech and Chong, guys. This wasn’t a straight comedy of course like C&C’s movies are, but still, PE was trying to have it both ways and was just lame.

Superbad was largely the same, although in that movie, the cop scenes with Rogen and Bill Hader constantly hassling ‘McLovin’ were really the only parts I liked – I just can’t believe high school kids use profanity every other word like that all the time, even if not attending The School of Rock and wearing uniforms. Sorry Seth, try again.

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They were STILL making them? Even *I* moved over to CDs (not exactly sparkling new tech themselves) decades ago? Even the iPod is already 9 years old, after all…..

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Saw the short ‘documentary’ Heavy Metal Parking Lot this evening. This is a very short movie filmed way back in 1986, when ‘heavy metal ruled America’ for a short time (you had to be there :)). The ‘movie’ itself is pretty basic, not a heck of a lot more than the camerman/interviewer going around the parking lot before a Judas Priest show and handing the mike to various burnouts drinking beer and yelling ‘Priest Rules!!’ over and over. Some highlights:

1) Did we really have all that horrible hair? Yep. If it wasn’t a mullet, or ‘she-mullet’ (guess where the hair-metal bands got those long scraggly ‘dos? From the chicks!) – it was an uncombed ‘feathered back’ mess. The last time I saw that many winners in the same space, it was either Monsters of Rock (at the Seattle Kingdome – sporting Dokken, Metallica, Scorpions and ‘Van Hagar’) or even worse, a USFL football game in Portland during high school. Yes Virginia, there are lots of weird people/trolls out there who live under big rocks nearly every day of the year and only come out into the light for crappy semi-pro football or rock concerts.

2) Nearly everyone on camera seems to be drinking beer, even though almost none of them are even 21 (several admit their age on camera between beer chugs) and there was at least one cop seen walking around, to boot! This concert was in Maryland somewhere at what looks like a high school stadium (but I think it was in fact a sports stadium). Even worse, one guy brags about being 20, then his girlfriend says she’s 13(!) – then they start making out – ewwwww! The one saving grace is that he’s wearing aviator-style sunglasses – which proves that those glasses STILL SUCK today too, guys!

3) The one guy who says he likes Scorpions best (they were my fave at the time) is also sporting a ‘f*** you’ tshirt – pretty funny. Like nearly everyone else, he mugs heavily for the camera , yells and then chugs.

there are other ‘extras’ on the DVD but bleh. They include other subject-matter ‘parking lot’ movies (including a Harry Potter one?) and a brief HMPL ‘alumni’ movie – where they talk to some of the people in a ‘where are they now’ style. Watched about 5 mins. of this, but bleh.

Man, watching that was just too weird. And a little TOO real 🙂

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Continuing a two-week-long tradition, we saw our friends’ band – Shiftless Layabout – this past Sunday night at a small bar in Wallingford, Sea Monster.

Notwithstanding the coolness of being in a bar that has *anything* to do with sea monsters generally, SL is a great band to boot! Their sound is funky, but more akin to roots-funk (e.g. The Meters – who were playing over the bar stereo both before and after their set, conveniently enough) than say, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. In part because they have horns (like my boys in Fishbone) but they just have a mellower, more laid back sound. All the better to groove with.

Their next gig is Friday Oct. 22 @ The Scarlet Tree over in Roosevelt area. Check them out before the show by hitting their myspace page linked above, or on YouTube.

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