Geek with Family

Last week’s Seinfeld presented the self-referential concept of leaving on a high note. The joke centered around George sharing one good sarcastic comment at a meeting and then extinguishing its good humor with a descent into tastelessness. Jerry suggests he go out on a high note, like the great showmen of years past. This plan succeeds to a point. It is an idea that more franchises in the entertainment industry should take to heart. It happens all too often that a once grandly marketable entertainment giant gets overexposed and watered down to the point of self-destruction.

Continue reading Strangling the Life Out of Your Obsessions - One Encore Too Many

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(Major Spoilers Ahead!)

My first exposure to Mamoru Oshii’s movies was over my shoulder. While working at Golden Age Collectibles in Seattle, WA, the staff and I would preview selections from our library of anime imports on a TV behind the register. These weren’t translated at all, just straight Japanese so we would turn the sound down in favor of the older staff’s lame CD selections, like Annie Lennox. Because I was supposed to be working and not watching TV the whole movie of Patlabor 1: Mobile Police was just like the opening credits–fading in and out of black, with murky cut scenes in between. With these short, random glances, I took Patlabor to be some military mecha bore-fest full of foreign talking heads. I was almost right, this film didn’t exactly fit into my anime-action ideal at the time, which involved teenage biker gangs with telekinetic powers (Akira, if you can’t guess).

Continue reading Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor 1 and 2 - The Coup Trilogy - Anime Analysis

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