JsARCLIGHT

I got my new Cinefex today and it has a section on Flags of Our Fathers in it. From what I see, I see Saving Private Ryan 2. Lots of CG, lots of muted colors and lots of angsty patented Eastwood "quick cut" editing. The article even points out how Eastwood shot many scenes fast with the intention of digitally replacing mid and background elements in post. Of the shots they show a few are impressive, but "par for the course" for a modern day WW2 movie.

I thought this movie coverd Iwo Jima... no Germans on Iwo Jima. I also don't believe it has anything to do with "offending anyone" but more to do with "everyone else is making a WW2 thing, so I will too". One war is no more "politically correct" than another, it's just that WW2 has attained this near mythic level of respect and reverance with tons of people. When people think of a "good war" they instantly think of WW2... I more or less put a lot of that on the deluge of positive movies made about WW2. WW2 has "good spin" and yes there will always be WW2 movies made... I'm just saying it got old with me with Saving Private Ryan and all it's copycats. It just seems with every coming year another WW2 movie comes out that does not really add anything to the overall mythos of WW2 that has not been covered ten times already... everything reeks of "me too" or "Saving Private Sequel".

I'd like to be interested in this movie but I'm not. I'm just so burned out on WW2. One can't swing one's dead cat without hitting some WW2 property today, be it games, movies, etc. I should be saying "Yaay! A Clint Eastwood war movie!"... instead I'm saying "Great... another WW2 movie... wooptie crap." Yeah it's great and all that the movie is about the heroes of WW2, like all the WW2 movies, it's just that it's getting old for me. It's not Clint's fault that this genre is getting so much wear lately... I just have a hard time going to watch yet another WW2 movie showing me yet again how brave the "greatest generation" was and how much they sacrificed. I'd rather go see something with the same thematic goals but a different setting... Spanish American War? Korea? War of 1812? - JsARCLIGHT runs off and watches Heartbreak Ridge again -

But are these crimes of opportunity or crimes of circomstance? Being an easy roll might make thieves more brazen to attack more and more of these people allowing them to make up loot by sheer numbers. It's not uncommon for criminals to purposely target poor or "low yield" marks in volume as they will get the same amount of loot from several relatively easy to rob people as compared to one or two "hard targets" who might have more money on them but would definately be a difficult robbery. Without more information there is no way to know for sure. Japan does not seem to suffer from a lot of the social "street crime" problems that America does thanks to the glut of drugs flooding our streets so the odds of this being your average "street urchin looking for drug money" mugging are probably out the window. The whole "gang mugging" element leads me more to think it's just punks or some other youth based gang... and as such this may not be about the actual loot stolen from these people but more to the tune of the act of the mugging. It may be some sort of street gang style "jump in" ritual that has cropped up. I know a few years ago here in saint louis there was a rash of car thefts in a certain area... the only thing tying them all together was the car colors, they where all white. It was later discovered that a local street gang was using that as an initiation... they would have the pleeb go rip a white car and drive it back to the others to show them he was cool.

Not to state the obvious but if I was going to stick up someone I'd pick either a woman or a dork... the woman would probably put up a fight. It's all about not making yourself a target and IMHO when you walk down the street wearing a baggy InuYasha T-shirt, black socks pulled up to your knees while wearing walmart shorts with a balding pony tail and look about 50 pounds overweight that just screams "mug me I'm incapable of fighting back". Then again, what are you going to get off of a mark like that? A Gundam keychain? A Star Wars wallet full of ones and if you're lucky a five? A small bag of multi sided dice? Easy pickings yes but what do you do with the really shitty pickings you get? I'd like to see the look on a fence's face when a curve dumps a bunch of crap like that on his counter.

Once again like the Cannes announcement it seems that honor is kind of dubious. Going to the 2006 International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival web page and looking at their list of what movies are being shown one soon discovers that RT:SC is apparently the only animated Sci-Fi feature movie being shown. Not hard to be named best in class when you are seemingly the only one in the class. Using that logic I'm the grand champion of middle aged white guys in Saint Louis with brown hair wearing green shirts with matching shoes today... I'll be disseminating a press release covering this honor at a later date.

Looks decent... not great, but decent. You have to at least applaud their effort. It takes a lot to do something like this in one's spare time. I'm not sure what their main contributor's "status" is when it comes to 3D work but for an amateur they have some moderate skill. Now, if these guys "worked in the field" then I'd say I'm disappointed, but for a fan-made "basement project" most likely done in their spare time with little to no pro help or skill it's not that bad. I think the big thing hanging most people up is the name association. If they would have just called it something other than "Robotech" and forced the instant mental comparison to the real deal it might be more interesting to more people. IMHO what is hurting them the most is not creating their own story and characters but borrowing someone else's... a common weakness in a lot of the amateur work I see. Nobody likes making their own characters, they instead copy someone else's design. Yeah, sure, great... you can build Nightcrawler... but I'd be more impressed if they made their own story and characters. After all, when you create the world who is to say it's "too gundamed up"?

Bingo. Blazing Saddles = comedy gold Spaceballs = passable at best Dracula Dead and Loving It = a form of torture outlawed by the Geneva Convention I also lump Zucker Abrahams Zucker in that same category as Brooks. They too started out sooooooo freaking funny but after the same jokes are recycled for the umpteenth time with no real new material you just get sick of it.

Color me skeptical but if this was acutally coming out don't you think we'd have heard something from say, a Japanese toy magazine or some other source months beforehand? Like prototype pics or something? Now I'm not trying to cast stones here but just who is this "NCS National Console Support" place anyway? Do they routinely scoop item releases?

Not to derail the thread any more but Sigourney Weaver is stauchly anti-gun, it is her political stance. It has nothing to do with religion, it's just her own personal politics. She has always been this way, even durring the filming of Aliens. She personally says as much in the Aliens DVD special features section during her interview. She (some might say stupidly) did not read the Aliens script all the way through before agreeing to be in the movie... then when she shows up on set and the prop guy hands her a rifle she freaked out. There where contractual obligations at that point so she had to suck it up and made the movie, but she made it a point to fight tooth and nail in each following movie that her further involvement in the franchise meant her character would not handle firearms. As far as I know the "character" of Ripley, in name, likeness and design, is owned by Brandywine productions and 20th Centry Fox, who are the ones who grant character licensing rights. Sigourney Weaver has no right to "forbid" anyone from making a toy of the character Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley and loading it down with weapons. What she CAN do is legally wrangle so that they cannot "use her likeness" without her permission. And seeing as how these Hot Toys Aliens figures bear only a fleeing resemblance to the actors they are of they most likely skirted that issue by making it "look like her but not look exactly like her". Hell, for all we know Weaver may be filing a court injunciton as we speak.

For future reference if you have basic questions there is a pinned "Newbie Questions on Macross" topic HERE at the top of this section. There are a lot of great folks who walk that thread who can answer all sorts of basic questions about Macross like this one for you quickly. Not trying to be an ass, just pointing it out. And with that... Done and done.

OK, I think everyone has had a chance at this. Sorry guys but in keeping with the "family theme" stuff yadda yadda yadda this has run it's course.

Some possibles: Goudy Heavyface Try searching through Identifont's system and see if you can hit anything.

I love that stuff... sweeping multi-channel sound gives me wood. The intro to Apocalypse Now with the "ghost chopper" audio sends chills down my spine when heard in 6.1 surround cranked up past 10 into "Gojira" range.

I broke down and bought ANH out of curiosity a few days ago. Personally the quality difference is noticable to me. On my plasma the new version of the movie is crisp, clear and nice with it's clean 5.1 audio. But the whole reason I bought it was for the original version which had to be centered in my screen using my monitor's aspect ratio controls... doing so caused a slight "zoom" effect on the footage which as a side effect caused it to be somewhat blurry. All in all it was decent... my biggest gripe being about the 2.0 dolby audio, but that is to be expected. To be honest if you have a normal non HD 4:3 TV and no fancy stereo crap like I have I bet the transfer would be more than adequate, even good... but for an audio/videophile like myself it was just bad enough to make me notice it and then focus on it the whole time. It's not the DVD's fault that I'm playing it back the way I am. Suffice it to say I'm not going to buy the other two movies. I mean, the only reason I bought this one was because I wanted to see the original cut once again so badly I broke down and got it... but playing it back on my home theater was kind of painful to me. Just blurry enough to be annoying and that 2.0 audio mix was just too old school for my tastes...

I was seriously considering getting this set in the tin from Best Buy... but after hearing that the original cuts of the movies (the only reason why I'd buy this set) are non-anamorphic and of quite low quality I'm going to skip it. It's not like I've seen these movies 8 billion times already so it's no real loss...

[sulu from Family Guy] Heeeellllllooooooooooooo! [/sulu from Family Guy]

I'm not sure that's the case... the original creator and distributor most likely have retained the rights to the names and such. I see this new show as more of a case of dusting off an old license, copying the trends of existing tween cartoon shows (Teen Titans, Kimpossible, etc), doing some minor rebranding and creative and then releasing what they believe will be a quick turn cash cow show. The Americn way in full swing. Also to be honest the original Thundercats was a toy-based cash-in show as well. It was just a creature of the '80s when things were bash kickass and rough and tumble action... today's American kids shows are all "let's talk this out" and kinder, gentler super hero "fantasy violence" stuff. IMHO this is the natural evolution of the Thundercats given the current trends and directions of American produced children's programming.

This new show sounds like design by comittee. Suit #1: "OK, we're bringing back the Thundercats... suggestions?" Suit #2: "Why not make them all a rock band? With magic powers?" Suit #3: "And we need to give them ALL magic weapons so they are all special." Suit #2: "Oh I like that idea... it would tie in well with child size play weapons... let me get marketing in on this meeting..." Marketing: "We don't care what you do, just make sure you introduce new characters every other episode, give everyone one or two vehicles, make sure there are at minimum two or three things we can turn into massive playsets... oh and if possible make two or three female characters and one old guy we can shortpack for that goofy adult collector market." Suit #4: "And let's make this all take place in modern day so creative doesn't have to dream up any special planets or alien worlds." Suit #2: "Oh yeah, that's a great idea... then let's jump on the bandwagon and make them all tweens or teens so we can work in the usual after school special life lessons, teen/adolescent issues and PC storylines!" Suit #4: "I'm seeing a prom episode already!" Marketing: "I see children's books and various other educational tie-ins." Suit #1: "I like what I'm hearing... now let's make it all like that Japanimation stuff that the kids seem to love..." Suit #3: "My life partner felt that Snarf was misused as comic relief, let's recast him as the wise old sage and make someone else the comic relief." Suit #1: "Sounds good. Any other suggestions?" Marketing: "If possible can we ink a deal for the video game on a next gen console that is just coming out so we can cash in on the 'but its one of the only games available right now' craze?" Suit #4: "And also let's..." -Knock on boardroom door- Original Writer: "I heard you guys where redoing Thundercats... here is my updated script that builds on the original, expands on the characters and turns what was simply a forgettable '80s toy vehicle show into a magnum opus of literary genius!" Suit #1: "Security to the boardroom."

I will do like I always do and restate my desire for 12" GI Joe styled Ride Armors. They don't have to "Transform"... just make the bike come apart into pieces and then reassemble it together with some extra parts to make the armor. That way you could have crazy nuts BBI/Dragon level detail on the figures and the bikes and still maintain a nice, solid and most of all STURDY thing you could display and be proud of. Making them 12" doll figures would solve soooo many problems. The could have removalbe helmets, various small arms (Galant pisols anyone?) and most of all tons of posability and a nice big, hefty size. After seeing my Hot Toys Aliens figures (and paying for them, ouch) I would GLADLY pay $300 a pop for 12" doll ride armor sets if they made them to the crazy detail level I am thinking of. The would be the ultimate Mospeada collector's toys. Then again this is Toynami I'm talking about. Nothing they have done has impressed me and they are bickering about the cost of manufacturing a giant brick of a mecha that would be one tenth the complexity and cost of making my dream ride armors. Oh well, I better put away this crack before the cops see me.

I was mostly speaking to the production values and the pace of the story. M66 is a fine example of specops in action but a poor example of animation and storytelling.

I think you are confused here. Rumiko Takahashi did not work on KOR. Izumi Matsumoto created KOR. Takahashi created Maison Ikkoku. 423516[/snapback] My bad, I get all those mid '80s anim-emo soap shows mixed up... it still beats the crap out of most of the modern Rumiko stuff though. I have a bootleg of the original cut (titled Once Upon a Time: Windaria if I'm not mistaken)... not much was removed, just a handful of scenes that didn't affect much of the story. The stuff they removed was about on par with the things you'd see hollywood remove to drop from an R to a PG13 and from what I recall it was simply a handful of the more "graphic" death scenes. For all intents and purposes the things they cut are not missed.

The first movie is a classic (Donald Plesance as the president, Ernest Borgnine as a crazy cabbie, Adrieane Barbeau, Harry Dean Stanton, Isaac Hayes, Lee Van Cleef... the list goes on), the second movie is a travesty (Steve Beuchemi, ugh... Pam Grier playing a tranny, double ugh... hang-gliding and surfing a tidal wave, triple ugh)... I'm not sure how I feel about this movie. If it continues the trend it will be so bad it will give people cancer.

Fang of the Sun Dougram - while people might claim this is not so "obscure" and a lot of folks say they like it, almost no one these days has seen the whole 70 some episode series (Opus you and I don't count ) It's a rare early gem cut from the same cloth as the original Gundam TV remembered more for the part it played in US Robotech model sales than for it's actual origins. Armored Trooper Dorvack - see Dougram above Dead Leaves - I don't know why but the first time I saw this I laughed myself sick Windaria - What can I say, there is something about a movie in which every single person dies in totally shakespeareian ways. Kimagure Orange Road - also not all that "obscure" and someone else mentioned it already, but few people have seen the whole TV series, OVA and movie. IMHO this is the show that Rumiko should be remember for, not Ranma or flavor of the week InuYasha. Urusei Yatsura: Beatiful Dreamer - once again, saw this in the early 90's before all the new Rumiko stuff. While I did not care for the series that spawned it or the other UY movies I found this movie to be strangely haunting and engrossing. Black Magic M66 - my first exposure to Masamune Shiriow was through this manga and my first exposure to anime made from his work was this one-off video. While it was shallow, plodding and by today's standards quite poorly made I liked it and still do.

For 3 grand I'd expect that thing to come with a real rifle... or the girl... whichever has the fewest import restrictions on it (which my guess would be the girl).