JOURNAL: MCWagner (Matthew Wagner)

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  • I'm all right.....no-body worry 'bout me.... 2002-05-06 00:04:44 I just thorougly out-geeked a completely random individual who wandered in with my new roomates. I was worried for a second as he actually correctly identified Chi-Chian from clear across the apartment.

    "Oh my God, that's Chi-Chian."
    "Oh my God, that's someone who knows who Chi-Chian is."

    All things considered, my eventual victory feels remarkably like having no life... 
  • There was a little girl / Who had a little curl / Right in the middle of 'er fore'ed / And when she was good / She was very very good / and when she was bad... 2002-05-04 10:11:59 OK, joke's over. That little thing I posted last time in order to "get it outta my head before it hurt someone"? It's still in my head. AND IT WON'T GET OUT! That particular line has always struck me as so simply constructed that it just screamed out for "Hulk kareoke". Now the other lines are just coming a bit too easy...

    "Hulk has Hulk boo-ooks.
    And Hulk po-etry to protect Hulk!"

    Gahh, I thought writing it down would get it outta my head, but it's just not working. This is gonna drive me nuts. My apologies to anyone else similarly afflicted.

    It doesn't help that I went to see the Spider Man movie tonight, and they had an ad for a new movie. Yup.

    Hulk

    Directed by Ang Lee.

    I'll just let that percolate among the rest of you. (No, I'm not gonna review the Spider-Man movie. I have an enormous backlog sitting here of things to review and I haven't even touched "mount DVD" in two weeks. There's Read or Die, the Akira manga, CoC D20, Final Doom, Lexx, and, since the day before yesterday, "Jason X", THEN Spider-Man. I may jump around a bit according to mood, but I'll try to get reviews up with a little more hustle now that class is no longer kicking my ass. Of course, that's not even counting what's up on the block for tonight... Look to Lord Rae for a more prompt set of impressions on the spider-movie.)

    Kusoyaro: Well, at the very least you can be sure I'LL get to see your experimental works if they get sent AWA's way. Please? Pretty please?

    EK: I love this one sig from the petition you posted: "Ummm...notice all the false sigs? It's people calling you stupid. The second book in the trilogy is named The Two Towers. It's a shame that you are all so ill informed."

    Reminds me of the old Mr. Boffo strips "People unclear on the concept."

    In other news, it has come to my attention recently that I am either really rude or terribly self-centered. This is something that's only recently been nagging at me, and now that I take note of it, I realize how frequently I do it. You know how most people you know will greet you in the hall or in passing with a "how ya doin'"? You know the right response, right? It's "Pretty good, how about you?" right? Well, being the individual desperate for attention that I am, and trying to look at my most clever at all possible times, I always have to come back with something other than the expected answer, even if it's no better than a "could be worse." The problem is that this leaves out the essential reciprocal inquiry. Subtracting the implication that I, of course, have some interest in the progression and the quality of the recipient's life, right? Of course, neither party really cares one way or the other, it's just a greeting in passing. Well, I've been leaving that out. I don't know when I started doing it, but I know it's been going on for several years now. I don't think I actually inquire about another human's well being more than once or twice a week, and answer the same question myself at least two dozen times. Now I'm trying to fix it in order to better adapt myself to this situation people call "social" but I'm finding the old instincts too difficult to overcome. It always has to be some witty riposte or complaint about my status in the world rather than a heartfelt inquiry into the matters of other people with no concern for their effect on me.

    Of course, if they weren't all such blase, inane, sub-intellectuals with not a thought in their head beyond their status in the office pool maybe it wouldn't be so difficult for me to care.

    Foolish underlings. I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!!! Muwahahahahahaha......

    On a related note of "hard to care," the amv mailing list has lit up with the candle-power of a million flames. As usual with these matters, everyone is talking past each other, extrapolating, conjecturing, and asserting their right to opinion. They've even started comparing people to Hitler at this point. I was gonna go into a long digression here about the stupidity of extrapolating the various judging methods of our silly little hobby out to the genocide of Jews and Blacks (I kid you not) but frankly it's all gotten so dumb that I'm having far too much trouble just pretending to care. So I'll sum up my positions. Re: ErMaC and Brad talking their way into the semi-finals at Fanime con. I don't know ErMaC, but I do know Brad, and I am very surprised at the firsthand reports what's-her-name is bringing. I'll reserve judgement until I actually hear from Brad on the subject (and since he doesn't subscribe to the list, I doubt he'll hear about it until it's long faded from everyone's memory...and I won't care enough to ask him since I wasn't there). However, if the judging was announced and planned to be done one way, and was done that way, then no one who entered has a leg to stand on with regard to complaining. The director shouldn't have backed down (if that's what he did). Re: AMVs as "art". Oh God, not this one again. Look, AMVs are art in the same way that model train sets are art. They are a little hobby occupying a really obscure corner of an off-mainstream media obsession. If you feel like calling it "art," go ahead, but the point Dong was trying to make is that it's not "high art"...the stuff that you put in museums and get $15,000 grants from the government to create and put in places for the enjoyment of the public. Stuff that "validates" one as a "true artist" to whom all other, lesser, beings should bow down to. We like it. Anime fans like it. Show it to the man on the street and he'll call it "cool" and forget about it fifteen minutes later. Show it to an uptown art critic and they won't give you the time of day. Who the hell cares what you call it? (On public "art," I have relatives out in Albuquerque [no word should have more than one "q"] and while touring around the city happened upon some of the public works of "art." Apparently the city beautification committee is (or was) funding the creation of insightful abstract pieces of "art" to make their city better....or at least less dull...which is difficult to do in a perfectly flat, hot, dry, grid-patterned city without physically moving the city into the Indian reservation. Anyway, the result of this funding was a mosaic-patterned "Buick on a stick" (really), a lay-z-boy partially sunken in a cement slab (outdoors), and a bunch of random plywood sticking out of a shopping center wall, working as a perspective trick...right next to the main thoroughfare. Sigh.)

    On to the review. This one may be a little scattered, as I, once again, have no copies of the material in front of me to watch outta the corner of my eye as I write this review. On the other hand, I'm already on my second Guinness and I have to plan out a game for my CoC group tomorrow, so at least I'm in the proper mindset. Once again, I'm gonna review something about the undead. Once again, also, I'm gonna review an anime. Yeah, that's right, I'm gonna look at Hellsing.

    OK, first of all, this show has style. However, it fucks up a few tiny little things that just bug the hell outta me. I'm gonna state them here and get them outta the way so that I can move on to the review proper. First off, they misspelled the title. That's just dumb. The title is the name of a secret organized militia designated as the English bureau in charge of killing vamps. This alone, combined with the revelation at the end of the series, leads us to believe that the society was named after that most famous of vampire hunters, Dr. Abraham van Helsing. Except, of course, that he spelled his name with ONE "L". I'm sorry, that just bugs me.

    Second, the organization is run by "Sir" Ingress. Except, of course, that she's a woman. When women are knighted, unless I am very much mistaken, they are not referred to as "Sir" but as "Dame" or "Lady." This also just unreasonably peeves me. It bespeaks a basic lack of research on the part of the creators into the culture within which the story is placed.

    Now that that's out of the way, I can say that I rather liked this show. It was, however, only by a narrow margin.

    The story begins with a top-heavy young lady named "Victoria Celes," a member of England's crack swat team. (I may be mis-remembering some details here. It's been 14 weeks since I saw the first episode.) Called out to provide support against an outbreak of vampires in a parish (the contagion-carrier is a priest) her entire team is killed and turned on her in a pretty scary, albeit largely ineffective effort. A chance wrong turn puts her at the mercy of the head vampire as he stands at the pulpit of his church, the loyal decaying parishioners filling the pews.

    What happens next highlights what I think is a basic misconception of western horror as seen through the eyes of the eastern horror fan. The doors of the church are flung open and a single figure enters. Dressed impeccably in a red leather duster and stylin' formal attire all the way up to his tinted goggle-shades and pimp-hat, the figure strides slowly to the center of the church, staring straight ahead at the inverted-priest while an enormous grin spreads across his face. He's the "good" guy.

    Anyone here even remotely worried about the guy in red?

    Anyone?

    Didn't think so.

    See, that's the problem. When the forces of good have the holy mother of all stylin' badasses on their side, it ain't really horror when we're confronted with the legions of darkness, is it? It's more like Dragon Ball Z. Don't misunderstand, not being horror does not equal "bad" in my book. However, it is so terribly obvious that the makers here were trying to emulate Western horror techniques and ideologies, that when they fail on such a basic point it counts against them.

    However, this is also the point where the bits -I- like show up. Through a series of events, Victoria Celes has "the choice" forced upon her. Rather than bleed to death from a sucking chest wound, she chooses to become a vampire by feeding upon the pimp-hat's blood. Throughout the rest of the series, she refers to him as "her Master". The second episode is really great as she begins to understand the repercussions of her choice and is alternately overcome by horror with what she must do, and by blind, seething hunger for blood, as well as unquestioning obedience to her Master.

    The plotline of the series doesn't follow her exclusively, though. See, pimp-hat, named Arkard (If you have a fan-sub wherein he's called "Alucard" it's incorrect, but you have to be listening really closely to catch it. Several groups made the mistake, since Alucard is a long-running vampire name, as it's "Dracula" spelled backwards.), is in thrall to the Hellsing organization, as run by the indomitable ice-queen "Sir Ingress." Victoria has just volunteered to help out in their work, the extermination of the vampires in England. There's a problem, though. It gets a little complicated here, so pay close attention. Someone has been making vampires...but rather than do it the traditional way, they've been doing it with hardware. This point was never very clearly delineated, but essentially if a normal vampire bites someone and kills them, but does not feed them their blood, they turn into a "ghoul," sorta a zombie-level "wander about and kill for blood" foot soldier. Having them drink turns them into actual vampires, but a step down from whoever created them. I don't think it's ever explicitly said, but for once, the show is rejecting the "viral" vampire explanation and going with the original, much more interesting (to my mind) "arcane magics and demonic possession" angle. Someone is cutting out the middle-man through the creation and implantation of "freak-chips": spidery little microchips that turn humans into controllable vampires capable of making their own ghouls and acting somewhat independently. No one knows where the "freak-chips" are coming from, but, other than Arkard, no one has seen a "true vampire" for quite a while. "True vampires" are something of a mystery that is also not fully explained. Capable of nearly anything, they are referred to (mostly by Arkard) as phenomenally powerful and mercuric in form, embodying some kind of ancient (perhaps demonic?) force. Arkard's own true form when he becomes "unlocked" (he wears sealing wards on his gloves, presumably placed there by Hellsing to check his unlimited power...think Belldandy and her earing) is some of the best animation of the series as enormous red eyes open in the shadowy void of his body, and black, hound like, snapping heads made of pure darkness strain out from his body to swallow up the creatures before him. It looks really cool.

    To talk about the plotline in any more detail than that would be both giving away the story and working at a level that (again) is never clearly told. Much of the story of this series is kept in the dark even to the very end of the show. A handful of various opponents show up throughout the series, including a Bonnie-and-Clyde pair and a real foul-mouth with a thing for piercings. Political powers begin moving against the organization. A strange force from outside, presumably the force behind the "freak-chips" begins making overtures. Other, complacent vampires, representing the entrenched elite appear who merely wish to be left alone. Individual investigations between departments get caught up in the mess. Booby-traps catch most of their foot soldiers off guard. And a turf war breaks out between the denominations of the Christian faith.

    Yeah.

    OK, further comments on the misapprehension of Western concepts by this show. Now, I know I'm Lutheran at heart, and we tend to be among the more easy-going denominations of Christianity, but I find it simply silly that there would be a tumultuous battle (wherein the most physically deadly members of both sides would square off against one another) resulting from the attitude that "you can't kill this blasphemous undead spawn of Satan here...he's on the Protestant's turf! You take one more step, Catholic, and we're gonna rumble!" Really, will there be singing? Who's the Jets and who's the Sharks? In the incident mentioned above, a Catholic exorcist, sent by the Vatican, shows up and kills a dozen or so ghouls with a combination of spirit wards (?) and enormous trowel-swords (the blade is off-set from the handle three inches by a metal flange...for no apparent reason.) Then he squares off against Arkard and deadly banter is exchanged until a political move extracts the exorcist from the country. (Don't worry, he shows up later.)

    I keep encountering little weird incidents like this throughout a lot of Anime, and don't think it speaks well of the Japanese conception of Christian denominations. We may not get along swimmingly or politically with one another, but we haven't exactly started a war among ourselves recently. In the end we're only bickering about details. (IRA don't count, they're mostly political.) I could go on all night about the basic misapprehension of Christianity by the Japanese as presented through their anime, but that's a rant for another time.

    In spite of this particular weirdness, a good bit of this show does progress in a kind of fog-shrouded limbo of appropriate angst and spooky-ness. A perfect example of this is the flashback episode that partially explains the methods by which "Sir" Ingress holds Arkard in thrall. The STORY of the event is very simple, but it's told with enough attention to style and flair that it ends up as one of the cooler moments in the show.

    Most of the good bits (IMHO) rotate around either Victoria and her gradual acceptance of her position and nature, or "Sir" Ingress's stolid determination and unflappable nature. (Oh, she also has one hell of a butler....but that bit's fun enough to let you discover on your own.) The show also oozes "cool" on several levels. I readily admit that Arkard is a well-designed character who doesn't tend towards the sort of overblown exposition we usually encounter in such characters. He doesn't lecture or pose like Goku, or go into one of those lengthy screaming fits we get from blade-licking baddies. He chews up the scenery in a casual fashion with a wide grin forever fixed on his face, always hinting that he's using only the tiniest fraction of his true power, dispatching seemingly major opponents with off-handed ease. Imagine if Vampire Hunter D enjoyed his work more.

    The show, however, ends on a bad point. (Sigh) One of the worst mannerisms to crop up in the conversion of western horror to eastern presentation is the inevitable runaway train of amplification. Everyone has to be tougher than the previous. The stakes have to be higher. At some point you just bury the needle and say "he's gonna destroy the WOOORRRLLLDDDD!" Or kill God. Or something like that. The best anime horror is the stuff that concerns itself with the horror experienced by individuals. Once you hit the scale of "destroy the world" it ceases to have any real impact on the individual viewer. Viewers are supposed to jump and start and worry about the fate of the endangered character, not be horrified at the immense power of whatever absurd sponge-rubber monster has threatened the world on this week's Power Rangers. (IMO, Godzilla was much more science-fiction than horror.)

    Well, this one does that too. A REAL vampire is lurking in the shadows just in time for season renewals. He's orchestrating the events. Carefully maneuvering each player into place. He's a clever mastermind with vampiric power to back up his plans.

    Problem is, he's just stupid. Not in writing, but in design. Entirely nude, the grey-skinned, purple-painted emaciated critter is just ugly and dumb. One eye is three times the size of the other...for no reason. To counter Arkard's artillery (Arkard has two enormous silver handguns [look a bit like Ruger Redhawks in barrel length] engraved with the words "Jesus Christ is in Heaven" on the barrel. Victoria gets a portable artillery piece twice as long as she is tall) the main bad guy actually EXUDES A FLACHETTE-FIRING MAGNUM FROM HIS ARMPIT. He's so laughably evil and badly designed that he's obviously a final boss. His introduction just utterly shattered the careful, measured, anxious horror that had been building. It's like going in to meet your new boss and discovering an alien bug-thing oozing all over his orthopaedic chair. You just sort of sigh and go "well, HE'S obviously evil...get on with it."

    Well, I'll take that back a bit. The final boss was lame, but the final story-sequence was really pretty cool, for what it tells you and what it doesn't tell you. (No, I'm not talking about the "startling revelation" at the end of the show, I'm talking about the VERY last bit with Arkard and Ingress.)

    Further, I think the animation budget for this show started dropping subsequent to the first three or four episodes. I could be wrong, as I think it's a very gradual decrease, but the screen detail starts tapering off as the show progresses. Those first few episodes are beautiful, but later on the artists start taking shortcuts to save on the budget. (Vampires wearing gas-masques, etc.) Of course, this could just be my distaste for the final opponent showing through again.

    So, in summary, a show that bled potential all over the screen, but allowed a few really stupid universal anime trends to destroy its carefully constructed world by hitching a ride on that most predictable and tired of old plot-mules, the "world endangering horror" story. Watch it for the character development and the cool-ass fights. Ignore the plot, you'll only be disappointed by how predictably it ends. 
  • "Hulk have no need of friendship. / Friendship cause Hulk PAIN! / It laughing and it loving Hulk disdain..." 2002-04-30 11:21:02 I'm sorry. I had to get that out of my head before it hurt something. 
  • "It's like a Koala crapped a rainbow in my brain!" 2002-04-29 13:38:03 Kusoyaro: Hey, where'd your title line come from? Sounds interesting, whatever it is...

    Once more an endearing trip into the little fantasy world where complete strangers have more than a passing interest in my opinions on transient pop culture ephemera.

    First off, welcome to the site Jeff! (Rich Lather) Looks like I'm gonna have to break the glass over my "10" rankings now that "Why Me?" is finally listed on this site. (Seriously, people, if you don't tear up at the end of that video, you have no SOUL.) It's not my favorite video of all time, but it's only a hair's breadth away.

    AbsoluteDestiny & Amadazi: On the Eskimo "snow" thing...I've always been under the impression that, while Eskimos have over a hundred words for snow (hyperbolizing here....wait for the punch line), what they never tell you is that they're all dirty.

    "Oh look, honey. More fucking snow."
    "Really? It looks more like God-damned snow to me..."

    I mean, here in Georgia, we've all got a couple of extra words for that orange clay that's so prevalent around here, but the terms really don't apply until after you've managed to track it all over the house before noticing it. :)

    Bowler: I'm glad everyone is noticing how incredibly bad JLA is. I remember a while back they actually made some new episodes of "Superfriends" (although it was around for so little time I got the impression it was just a publicity stunt) and THOSE had more coherent plotlines. I don't, for the most part, mind the character designs, but their attempts to cram the entirety of character histories into an hour AND leaving enough room for the team to kick the shit outta someone at least twice comes off as them spoon-feeding us paste. Really. I coulda written better stories than some of these with my eyes closed. When the animation process is so incredibly labor intensive, there should NOT be enormous plot holes. Titan AE may have been awful (actually, I enjoyed it, but still...) but at least the story made SENSE on the surface.

    I made a comment concerning the "virtual child porn" law revocation in one of the forums (which the server crash erased and I haven't bothered to replace) to the general effect that occasionally the people placed in the positions of power in our judicial system actually know what they're doing and are able to spot the heart of the matter through all the pandering bullshit and do the right thing. This is not one of those times:

    http://www.nando.com/technology/story/379154p-3030283c.html

    As I've said before, free speech tends to get me all red in the face and incoherent, so I won't go through the details on this one, other than to summarize it as follows: The problem with this case is that the judge is making the mistake of characterizing "bad art" as "not art at all." He takes a good look at four (FOUR! WHAT THE HELL!) video games, doesn't like the "art" therein, and judges the genre in its entirety as being something less than an artistic form.

    Anyway, PA did a pretty through ream-job on this biddy anyway.

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/news2002-04-26.html

    The Golden Doughnut: OK, the pessimist in me is about to speak. What the hell, he's the only one ever talking here anyway. It ain't gonna work. It would require such a concerted, regular effort from such a large number of relatively poor individuals (such as myself and all other college students) that I think it'll just fall apart after an ambitious and promising start. The funds'll just peter out until it has to be shut down.

    Now, keep in mind that I had exactly the same attitude towards the DDR project. I didn't think it was gonna work. (And the AWA pro selection process for that matter.) I thought there would be massive back-outs at the last minute, or the entire project would be consumed by a computer glitch a few seconds before or during showtime. I was certain it was doomed to failure. It just asked too much.

    But here's the key: There was no way in hell it was gonna be my fault. I wasn't gonna be the one guy who fell through and didn't deliver, causing all the hopes and dreams to come a tumblin' down. To that end I worked and worked and worked and got my DDR track done on time, (OK, OK...ONE day late) which was a minor miracle on my part considering how long it normally takes me to complete a vid. It turned out that I was both right and wrong on that one. There were a handful of dropouts (not as many as I anticipated) but enough people took up the slack (thanks to them) to get the whole thing finished on time! (OK, OK, 30 minutes late)

    So I plan on doing the same thing here. Being a college student, I don't have that much cash lying around. (Actually, due to a rather distressing personal crisis, I have practically none right now.) But I'll chip in something on the order of $20 a month unless my situation improves.

    The rest of you pessimists, do the same. Remember, we could always be pleasantly surprised.

    Oh, and I really hate the name. I was very unimpressed by Trigun, and I'm getting tired of the doughnut references. Sigh. Guess I'll live though.

    Hey, if I wasn't gonna be frank, why write this at all?

    In other news...Lileks reviewed Frailty. Sigh. I just can't keep up with him. 'Course, I'm doubting that he'll be catching Jason X in the coming week, so I guess I've got a chance on that realm.

    (Oh, forgot last time to mention the fact that Scud, the tech in Blade II, watches nothing but the Power Puff Girls for the whole show.)

    On to the movie...movie? No, SERIES review. Hey everyone! It's anime this time!

    The title of this series is pronounced "Niea under seven" but the only real way to type it is "Niea_7."

    This is an exceedingly odd series. I don't mean FLCL odd....actually it's kind of at the opposite end of the odd scale. This show is as sedate as FLCL is frantic...sort of. Hmmm.

    You know, I've been trying to figure out how exactly to review this series ever since I finished it and discovered the single oddest ending I've ever encountered. It's available in the US on 4 DVDs for a total of 13 episodes each. I picked it up originally because the cover of the first DVD is utterly intriguing, without telling you anything about the show. Perhaps I should begin by saying that the vast majority of you all will not like this show. I'm not entirely certain *I* really like it....well, there are certain portions that I love, but others clash so severely with those that I can't take the transition.

    The show is remarkable in how little actual story there is to it. Once the setup is established, the series overall is about three weeks or a month worth of following some of the major characters around and seeing their typical life. There are a few contrastingly zany random adventures, but they have no real affect on the plot, and the episodes that silently follow after Mayuko in her daily trek when NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS develop the characters with a light, subtle hand and imperceptible brush strokes. During those episodes, the only anime I can really think to compare it with is "Omoide Poro Poro" although I don't wish to deceive you on this count. The world isn't nearly that well developed or perfectly conceived, nor are the characters quite as developed.

    There's sort of a vacancy in this series where the "purpose in life" should be stored. The main character, Mayuko, isn't shallow, but she feels herself buffeted by forces beyond her control. The world is a place she has to accept, not one she likes. (Can you tell this series was done by the makers of Lain?) To a certain degree, I think that this series is about people who are afraid that they're missing out on their own lives. People who have made a commitment to something, but are now slowly convincing themselves that the world outside is moving on to bigger and better things, and they've been left irreparably behind. (Oh wait, maybe that's just me...) Mayuko is the main character, although not the title one. She is a student in cram school (studying for an entire year to take the college entrance exam) and is living in poverty to be able to afford it. Mostly it's played for laughs, but this is the type of poverty that I hope I never have to experience firsthand. It's the kind of poor where you have to check to make sure that the price on the discounted meat includes tax. She's actually having trouble scraping enough together at the end of each day to eat, and almost never has anything more than white rice. She lives in a tiny rented room over an old dilapidated public bathhouse where she works every day. When a hole is blown through the roof in the first episode, no one can afford to fix it until near the end of the series, but Mayuko has to stay there anyway. Her single valuable possession is a men's wristwatch that her father gave her (yeah, tragic story that...) and she uses as an alarmclock.

    The title character, Niea, is an alien. See, the world is full of aliens...or at least this part of Japan. It seems that aliens came to earth twenty years ago...and, all things considered, it didn't really affect anyone. The aliens moved in among the humans, got jobs (mostly at a menial level) and just sort of settled in. There's little question that they occupy a fairly low strata in the social order. A lot of them (nearly all the aliens we see) live in a sort of improvised shanty-town in a land-sink crater on the edge of town. They have a social strata among themselves, however.....sorta. The aliens appear to hold some kind of partially-inherited rank-system among themselves that tops out at "over five". The only real distinguishing aspect of the aliens themselves is their fairly meaty, oversized ears (think if someone bobbed Deedlit's arrow-sharp points and she gained weight), and single, personalized antenna (Like radio antenna bent into comical shapes). Niea, however, is an exception. She's an "under seven" which puts her at the absolute bottom of the scale, and doesn't even have an antenna. In fact, we're later told that "under seven" isn't even really a ranking, as the ranks stop at "under five." I'm not really certain how we're supposed to interpret this, but it looks as though Niea has purposely thrown herself out of her own society. She lives "with" Mayuko in that she freeloads, eats Mayuko's food, and sleeps in her closet. She sort of occupies the "catgirl" strata in the anime, except that she isn't remotely sexy or charming. She's just a "catgirl" in that she's got pointed ears and is always begging or demanding food. She has no powers, outside of the uncanny ability to scavenge junkyard parts in order to make ALMOST sophisticated flying saucers.

    Speaking of flying saucers, there's one that figures rather prominently into the plot. Apparently the aliens all arrived at earth aboard the "Mothership", and apparently it was a crash landing. We can tell it was a crash, because the ship is still visible, stuck into the ground at an angle like someone hurled a frisbee into a mud puddle. Add a spherical dome to the top of the flying disc, a large, comical, curlicue antenna out of that, and you've got the basic idea. The thing is, we only see cloudy outlines of the ship....because it's SITTING ON THE HORIZON. The thing is HUGE. Take something about three times the dimensions of Stone Mountain and tilt it on it's side. Large cloud formations pass in FRONT of this thing. Everyone in the story is used to it, but the pure scale just startles me every time I see it.

    It's particularly an obsession of Mayuko's only friend from school, Chiaki, a UFO obsessor that makes Mulder look...well, heavily sedated, but then he always looked like that. She's sort of a diametric opposite of Mayuko. Large cluster of friends, fashionable clothes, and a laptop she carries with her everywhere so she can update her webpage constantly. Nonetheless, she's a very good friend to Mayuko and makes several attempts to pull her out of her shell...to little effect. She's a good character, but her design annoys the hell out of me because she wears a pair of glasses with nigh-invisible lenses and frames that only run along the bottom of the glass. Thus it always looks like she's looped a glasses sports-strap the wrong way round her face.

    The bathhouse itself is run by Kotomi, a strong businesswoman who has some undefined office job downtown, and is continuously fighting a losing battle to keep the bathhouse out of the red. You really don't get much of an impression of how "in trouble" the place is until later in the series where Kotomi takes to drinking herself to sleep at the kitchen table. Really kinda depressing.

    That's most of the main characters in a nutshell. For being such a short series, it actually extensively develops quite a few characters. In addition to those above, there's the fire-nut who tends the boiler for the bath, the old woman who watches the cash register, a father/daughter team who run a little failing restaurant in the neighborhood, and an exceedingly shy Andre-the-Giant childhood friend of Mayuko's.

    Then there's the aliens. This is where I just get my wires crossed. I'm not sure what message I'm supposed to get from them. Other than those living in the shanty town, the aliens all take on false nationalities. Karna, a loudmouthed uppity alien always trying to "better the social status of aliens" is dressed in a distinctively Chinese fashion. Another has a distinct Hawaiian look. Chada is the real problem, though. He's the source of a lot of the random zaniness from the third episode on. He's dressed as an Indian (India Indian) complete with turban and runs a local convenience store (that also looks like it's wearing a turban) named "AM11, PM7". (7-11, get it?) He is not written flatteringly. In addition to being something of a perverted idiot and rather insulting caricature of Indian people, his introduction into a scene is cause for hyperactive stupidity on everyone else's part, a-la "Love Hina." (He appears to be modeled after a live-action guy at the end of each episode who tells rather lame jokes about Indian culture at the end of every episode.) I cannot for the life of me figure out what purpose he serves. His store is something of a community center for the main-character aliens and they hold a weekly "alien meeting" that usually degenerates (much to Karna's displeasure) into a curry-sampling tupperwear party. 'Course, Niea only shows up for the free food anyway...

    The problem I have with the aliens is that it feels vaguely like the writers are trying to make some kind of point about foreigners trying to fit in while living in Japan, but I'm just not socially equipped to figure out what it is. I can't even tell if it's complimentary or not.

    The plot. Well... The story is very episodic, although the character development is ongoing. It jumps rather randomly between episodes of stupid zany-ness and episodes of everyday life interaction between the terminally stressed Mayuko and the easygoing Niea. The first DVD is rather misleading in this respect, as it contains explosions, flying saucers, and giant carnivorous plants. The other DVDs spend significantly less time with random stupidity and more on honest subtle character development (although the episode where Chada opens a competing public bath is just hilarious). There's really very little in the way of an ongoing storyline. The characters continue to be themselves, there's no invasion or world crisis to deal with, just the upcoming exams, picking through the junkyard, and the daily scrounging for meals. The last respect gets a little better when Mayuko takes on a third job delivering meals for the restaurant. The only event that has any real impact on the storyline is when Niea starts hearing things. In spite of her lacking an antenna, she seems to be picking up...something...from the mothership. All the eerie mood-injection you saw employed by these producers in "Serial Experiments Lain" is attached with a maximum amount of subtlety to Niea's receiving of these almost-messages. Near the end of the series, she disappears entirely after hearing something from the ship. This is the odd bit I mentioned WAY up above. At the end of the series, something happens. Something huge and significant and mysterious, and Niea appears to be the only one who knows what's going on, but in an utterly passive manner. And it is NEVER EXPLAINED TO US! The event occurs, the world sees it happen, Niea smiles a sad little secret smile, and then the world goes on it's merry way. The final episode is a complete return to status quo. None of the questions raised are answered: the bath-house is teetering on the brink, but we don't know if it gets sold; we don't know where Niea went or why she has no antenna; we don't know if Mayuko passes her exams or if the restaurant has to close down; nor if Mayuko's childhood friend ever asks her out. Imagine Tenchi Muyo with all of the aliens and daemons and space-travel removed. To paraphrase another wise individual "no one ever leaves, nothing ever changes." And yet, for some reason, I like it. The move toward personal, individual stories instead of the melodramatic "the world is in danger...again!" appeals to me. The over-emphatic employ of all the anime comedy stereotypes really blunted my liking of the show, though. They SD at really random moments and a lot of the rather forced humor falls flat.

    The DVDs themselves are rather nice, but nothing extraordinary. Their default is set to English-language, no subtitles, though it's easy to switch them back on. The extras are OK, if a little threadbare. The intro and outro themes are remarkably apt for the series. The intro is a rather melancholy piece sung in a raspy, aged voice, and the outro is a happy little simple upbeat tune.

    The show describes itself as "domestic poor animation," and while I'm not sure exactly what that means, it does adequately describe the level of animation in the show. Perhaps a half-step below what we're used to in detail, but competently and entertainingly animated with a lot of careful tricks employed to keep costs down. There are few fast-paced scenes and no fights at all.

    I give up. This show is just impossible to review without deceiving you on some count. I honestly believe it'll be too low-key for most anime fans' tastes, but there's a select few of you out there who might like this. I just have no idea how to single you out. Sorry. 
  • "Vampire Republican wolves!" 2002-04-24 20:39:54 Well, once again amv.org is down when I want to post an entry, although this time it looks like it might be a while before it comes back up again. If it's down for longer than a week or so, you all should expect some truly massive missives from this individual as I compose them all ahead of time in a word processor and then send them en mass over the first few days of that great database's return.

    (Susequent note: this would have been true as I now have five different reviews lined up, but my classwork has just kicked in overtime and prevented me from writing anything down. Probably better I had a break from this after all, or classwork would have suffered.)

    Also subsequent: Though the issue is now long over, I wanted to weigh in on the Xenodrake issue. This is lacking a lot of the steam and venom it would have had if I had written it when it blew up, but the salient points are as follows: Phade was perfectly permitted to do what he did with regard to Hentai music vids. I stand behind his right to do that all the way. I do not, however, think it was the right thing to do. I'm just gonna summarize what would have otherwise been a long and drawn out rant. Censorship of any kind is one of the few issues that I tend to get all wild-eyed and incoherent about, as you might see if you ever encountered my long ramblings on the topic:

    http://www.ryo-oh-ki.net/artificial-suns/censor.htm

    First off, let's not debate the semantics of the matter. Phade is judging certian ideas and concepts to be offensive and has thus required their removal from the list, namely direct linkings (or maybe linkings at all...I've lost track, and PFS seems to still be linked) to hentai materials. Why he finds this offensive is too convoluted and culture-affected an issue to go into in any detail without blowing this out of proportion and making way too many assumptions, but the fact remains that offensive material is being excluded from the site when it would otherwise be included. This plainly fits the definition of censorship. Thing is, this is Phade's site and he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. He could exclude all DBZ videos if he wanted, since he's the only one he has to report to. This isn't the "scary" censorship that everyone normally associates with governmental crackdowns, etc. All he's doing is trying to exclude one thing from his own personal space, not prevent anyone from ever having access to that one thing. These vids, hosted or not, are still publicly accessable to anyone with enough determination to track them down. The originals haven't been destroyed or impounded or struck from the library shelves, as it were. Thus, I stand behind Phade in his attempts to shoo away something he finds distatseful from his own personal space.

    On the other hand, while he is perfectly permitted to do this, that does not mean I, personally approve of the action. The amv.org site was set up originally to become a list of all AMVs out there for easy access and searchability. Later on, the linking option made it essentially a hub for AMV finding and running. Excluding some specific AMVs from the listing specifically contraverts the express purpose of the site, IMHO. Now it's not "all the AMVs we know about" but "well....almost all the AMVs we know about....some of the adult ones were cut out." Although Phade hasn't explicitly cut off the Hentai vid makers from showing their stuff elsewhere, lets' be honest. If it ain't listed on amv.org, the chances of finding copies or sites for download are exceedingly small. Even smaller if you don't know that said videos exist. Thus, these hentai vids get excluded from the public view, effectively limiting everyone's access without technically doing it. If a book gets banned from major bookseller's chains, it isn't technically removed from circulation, but the number of people who encounter it by chance and buy it will drop drastically as a result. To sum up, animemusicvideos.org promotes itself (not literally, but effectively) as the be-all end-all of AMV community connectivity, listyness, and linkitude. Getting dropped from this list is the death knell of a video. No one will ever see it again or know to ask for it.

    As a final note, I would just like to point out that any under-age child who comes onto this site and manages, out of the 7000+ videos here to pick out one of the twenty Hentai videos by accident is luckier than anyone would ever be able to plan against. Any child who accidentally wanders into said video after months of browsing around in the mess we perpetrate regularly on this board would be experienced enough with us to realize that we don't censor ourselves here and would know better than to download something labled a "hentai video." Any child who finds the video on PURPOSE is clever enough to find more porn off-site than we'll ever be able to manage representing here. Hell, I'VE been pretty raw on occasion in my little text missives here, should my Journal entries be flagged? The "think of the children" line was never a legitimate angle in this case, and I wish Phade would admit it. To put it simply, any under-18er who wanders in here, makes an account, and spends enough time digging through all the vids here to unearth a hentai one, deserves (for good or bad) what they get.

    Stop blaming society's ills on porn. Start blaming the parents. There was a time where children were kept under shelter until they were grown up enough to venture into the adult world. Now the entire world must be made "safe" and "sanitary" enough for them to go out whenever they want, and adults must hide away their actions under shelters and in dark, dank corners lest the adult world endanger the child-like one. Pardon me if I resist that particular trend every chance I get.

    Believe it or not, that was the short version. I now return you to stuff written before the server collapse.

    Hmm. What to talk about. One of the more disturbing things I've encountered in a while was the discovery two weeks ago that Seth Green has his own show! Now, this, in and of itself, is a cause for celebration. I've been a big fan of his ever since I ran across his character "Oz" in Buffy. Perhaps the most nonplussed character ever created, the garage-band love-interest for Willow (before she "started batting left-handed") gave a sincere approximation of Keanu Reeves's character from "True Love". Permanently stoned, untalkative, and profound in that unfazeable manner that could either be unfathomable depth or mudskipper shallowness, he ALWAYS got the best lines of the episodes. Of course, the fact that he contracted lycanthropy halfway through his run didn't hurt him any in my book. "Aunt Suzie? It's Oz. Fine. Fine. Is my cousin Timmy a werewolf? Uh huh. Uh huh. How long has this been going on? Oh, no reason. Yeah. Bye." I've been curious about what exactly motivated his exit from the show, since the manner in which they wrote him out and his short-term returns for crossovers and the like were some of the most awquard and badly-written episodes of the entire show. Ever since he left, he's had some of the most random acting jobs I've ever seen...most of which I haven't seen. In his career he hit the "Mad mad...World" remake in "Rat Race," paid his dues in crap horror flicks by starring in "Ticks" and "Idle Hands ," and (major flashback alert here) even did a few voices in the old "The Comic Strip" cartoon variety show, and more in the Batman Beyond movie. Then, of course, there's the Austin Powers flicks, which I never really liked. (Hey, personal taste here...)

    With all this work behind him, especially the starring roles in the more sucessful humor flics, you'd think he'd have a choice of primo projects. Then why the hell is he starring in "Greg the Bunny?" It's a (hold on, it's painful) human/puppet sitcom resembling "Unhappily ever after" only with the main character being a late twenty-something bachelor. The thing is just embarrasing to watch. It's trying to be edgy through the inclusion of a drugged-out puppet bear sidekick and a geriatric vampire, but it falls flatter than Alf ever did. To be fair, I flipped to it by chance and couldn't make it through five minutes without wincing at the stilted, forced acting, bad jokes, and crappy puppets, much less the hideous opening, so I switched channels. I'm guessing that Green has been so far over every end of the scale (just check out his imdb entry!) that no-one can figure how to typecast him, and he gets stuck with this dross. The other choice is that he picked out this show, thinking it's uniqueness would make it stand out. I hope that's not the case, because it shows very bad judgement on his part. Sorry, Seth, I give the show eight episodes before it disappears. It definitely isn't as good as The Tick was, so I don't give it nearly as long. Plus, he's shaved his head, so now he looks WAY too much like a stoned-out Opie.

    In other news...LILEKS PLAYS DOOM! Or he did, anyway... http://www.lileks.com/bleats/041502.html


    Individual responses to Kusoyaro and Rebus Valstay will have to wait, as I don't remember what I was gonna talk about.

    KZ, though, I do remember. What happened to ya man? You coming out to Quu's on monday?




    Ladies and gentlemen....a POSITIVE review of a vampire flick. Yeah, I finally got around to seeing Blade II a couple of days ago. That the movie was fun wasn't as big a surprise to me as most of you expect. I'd seen the first flick in the theaters as well a few years ago, and it was fast-paced stylistic fun that wasn't too concerned with establishing convoluted plots or anything of the sort. Simple, straightforward, creepy occasionally, funny at times, and, other than a few moments of bad drama, nothing much to make me wince. This new film follows the first in most of these respects, all the way down to the bad drama. Actually, it outdoes the first on all these counts.

    First off, I should point out what most people don't realize. Blade was actually a comic book hero first. The character is based off of a stoic anti-hero who (I'm going off of really sketchy details here, never collected these comics myself...) showed up originally in "Tomb of Dracula" and hung around like titles until he sporadically jumped in and among the various comics and crossovers of Spider-Man and Morbius the living Vampire. His character development in those comics is the real strong point of the conversion to movie form. That is, he was basically a half-Vampire, top-grade, Clint Eastwood style badass riding a Harley' and dressed head to toe in black leather. Gadgets and tools and remarkable skill at killing vampires entirely completed the character. There WAS no other character development, so nothing's really gotten lost in the move to movin' pitch-ers other than the presence of brightly-colored spandex-wearing co-stars. I believe (although, again, I could be vastly mistaken) that most of his adventures came to an end when all Vampires were expurgated from the Marvel universe. Dr. Strange, in another of his massively cross-universal brigades, along with the van Helsing's brood, and an odd fellow by the name of "the Silver Blade" managed a simultaneous destruction of Dracula (one of many such destructions) and a magical banishement and seal against Vampires ever entering the Marvel dimension again. (I always kinda wondered where they all got dumped out...Sunnydale?) Blade, Morbius, and someone else I can't remember got to stay in this universe through their own little "doughnut of destruction" that only let the good guys in during the banishment. In a rare act of continuity for Marvel, they kept to that seal and had none of that most alluring breed of life-sucking fiend enter the universe again for nearly a decade. Eventually, though, they started popping up again.

    Sigh.

    Anyway, the movie! This movie was surprising on several levels. Despite it's limited background, it managed to pull a hook or two out of the first film. There are several of these key moments in the film that occurr right at the beginning, so I can't avoid ruining at least parts of the film if I even obtusely talk about the plot. At least 50% of the fun for me was that I went into the show knowing only the main character and practically nothing else. For once, the ads haven't given the core surprise of the film away, but I'm gonna, so be wary. These surprises really are what made the film great, so this review is for those of you who aren't planning on seeing the film or are wavering enough that you just HAVE to have a few details.

    The intro music just sets the mood. You gotta love a horror/action flick whose first notes immediately make you think "Shaft". After an intro so neat that I'm not going to tell you about it, we pick up right in the middle of the first two surprises. The first surprise is where this movie takes place. The entire movie is set in the pitted concrete and weather-warped woodwork of Russia. Or one of the republics. Or possibly Romania. They aren't really clear, but everyone speaks Russian in glorious subtitles (skipping in and out [mostly out] in the tradition of "Red October".) You know, I really have no idea what any part of Russia honestly looks like. The movies we typically see of city life make one believe that the sky is constantly overcast, the world is continuously damp, and everything is covered with that thin layer of grime and the spartan "functional but not attractive" attitude towards construction and furnishings. To reach the brightly-lit and loudly cacaphonic dens of inequity and debauchery the "youth" freqent requires entering through the grimiest and most secluded of firetraps. Even the few Russian films I've seen tend to perpetuate this idea, and contingent with it is the inevitable linking of opulence with corruption. Such an attitude of continual depression strikes me as a terrible ideal to promote. Anyway, the second surprise is that Blade is running around terrorizing the local vamp population (duh) looking for something. Whatever could it be? Why it's his old mentor "Whistler"! What, you say? Didn't he shoot himself in the first movie rather than become a Vampire? Well, yes, but here's the key note:

    It happened OFF SCREEN!

    AAAAHHHHHGGG! We should have seen that one coming! Apparently he missed his head with that gunshot, became a vampire, was subsequently captured by the vamps, and tortured mercilessly for years out of the spite they have for the Daywalker. Now for the next surprise:

    That ISN'T THE MAIN PLOTLINE!!!

    No, no it really isn't. Whistler gets recovered a bare twelve minutes into the film and "cured." (Again they're going with the "viral" theory of Vampires, so there's a concocted cure. There's some flim-flam reason that it won't work on all vamps, but they don't insult our intelligence by detailing it. Something about strength of character, etc.) But something's wrong. He abandons his post during a battle, wanders off, second-guesses Blade's tactics and plans. Hmmmm. Don't get me wrong, he's still the same old scrappin' tough-talking cowboy Kris Kristofferson, but something's just a little "off."

    The main plotline kicks off with the introduction of the computer-generated ninjas. Bounding silently around the rafters like pajayma-clad superballs, two vampire ninjas (snicker) get past the Bat-cave's defenses (set up by Scud, Wesly Snipes's partner since loosing Whistler) and, after a silly sword-fight (why does no one ever thrust with swords in the movies? Because the fight would be over a lot quicker that way...) deliver a message to Blade. The ruling council of Vampires want to hire him. At a meeting with the geriatric and hobbled old vampire (sorta belies the "immortality" kick, eh?) Blade learns that something even nastier and deadlier than the Daywalker is out on the streets, and is a threat to both of them. A new breed of vampire, prompted by genetic mutation of the Vampire virus, and initially spread by an individual named "Jared Nomak" has shown up. Stronger, uglier, and (as is discovered later) immune to the weaknesses of normal vampires, including garlic, silver (a legendary method of killing vamps was silver bullets or blades...largely attributed only to Werewolves today), and even with an overgrown ribcage that prevents you staking their heart. Only sunlight can affect them. They're even immune to the famed EDTA!

    (Lengthy digression. EDTA was one of the reasons I liked the first film so much. It was such silly science. The lady doctor of the first flick discovered that EDTA acted like....well...like nitroglycerine to Vampires, causing them to explode all over the room when injected with it. (I suppose it might stop their heart attacks as well....but he never tried to find out.) The reasoning they gave was that it was an anti-coagulent. Thus they loaded ol' Wesly Snipes up with the EDTA, which was both LIQUD and BLUE. I work with EDTA (ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid) It's a white, powdery substance that acts as a metal chelater. I'm a little uncertian as to the origin of it's anti-clotting factor, but it's basic chemical character is such that metal ions in solution are "scavanged" by the molecules, as each elaborately-structured compound latches onto and completely surrounds the metal ion, blocking off the Ca and K pathways that are usually used for thrombosis signaling. Where it gets the chemical activity to BLOW PEOPLE UP I don't know. This is sort of like discovering that the alien's weakness is Jello...because it jiggles!)

    The new breed has been feeding on vampires, but the problem (as far as the vampires are concerned) is that all the immunities of the new breed come at a cost. Their highly accellerated metabolism means that they must feed every few hours or die of starvation. At that rate, the geometric growth of the new vamps (who turn other vamps into their kin) will chew up the entire vamp population in a few months, and turn to humans after that.

    Of course, they have one even nastier trick up their sleeves. Each new vamp has a scar running vertically from the center of their lower lip down to their neck. Really, turn back now if you want the best part of the movie to remain a surprise.

    The first step of the transformation is, apparently, to spit out your lower manible. No, really. These new vamps are missing any lower jaw. You see, humans really aren't evolved to use our teeth effectively in combat. Our faces aren't forward-portruding enough to easily clamp down on something prey-sized unless the curvature is very high (the neck, arms, etc.). This new breed gets around that. Their chin splits open sideways and unfolds like the knittlings of a spider's mandibles. The tounge blossoms into a nasty little oozing organic device and the whole assembly looks like someone cross-bred H.R.Gieger with Thrakkazogg. During the battle scenes, the CG animation on the vamps' lower jaws is really quite impressive, and nicely counters all the CG ninja's moves. All in all, these new vamps are really a step away (or rather a swing, all the NPC new vamps move like general Thade) from the charming ideal of goth vampire lovers, and it's obvious that the normal vamps want to curb this negative smear on their aristocratic image. ‘Course, those goths show up too. One of the CG ninjas is Leonor Varela and you know they aren't going to let that pretty Chilean face go to waste. (Yeah, yeah, love interest. Can we fast forward through this particuarly badly acted scene?)

    Hold on, we still haven't introduced all the major players. In addition to the Novak, the head of the Vampire council, and another bad guy I'm not telling you about, there's one more bad guy to boot. This film has so many principle bad guys at each other's throats it....well, it looks like a vampire flick. See, the council doesn't think Blade can handle these new kids on the block without help, and offers up it's own tactical strike squad (plus the pretty CG ninjas), initially trained to track down the Daywalker himself. This dirty half-dozen, sussed up with the typically over-zealous pseudonymes of comic books (Lighthammer [who vaugely resembles Vin Diesel...or was that the preview affecting my judgement?], Snowman, Priest [no, not resembling the Vertigo comic], Verlain, and Chupa), is lead by Reinheardt (what the hell kind of spelling is that?) who's not only a bloodsucking fiend of the night, he's a skinhead fuckwad Nazi sadist bigot as well! How evil is that! His very first line is when he walks up to Wesly Snipes and says "Me and the boys were wondering....can you blush?" (Whoa. If you don't follow the cultural implications of the question, be thankful. Portrait of a character who won't be surviving this film.) With a start-off like that, I was expecting ‘coon jokes to start cropping up for further emphasis of his irredeemable evilness. That was about as bad as it got, though. My basic problem with the character was that he was played by Ron Pearlman. I don't know why, but I just can't take Ron Pearlman seriously. I just look at him and think "actor" in all of his scenes. Really no idea why. (I should give him more credit. He's done several voices in really crappy animation in the past, and is slated for the lead role of gauntleted behemoth in the upcoming "Hellboy.")

    Yes, the basic setup for the film was that complicated. Don't worry though, it's over in the first 45 min. and, despite the distinct lack of a "Vasquez" (partial stand-in from "Chupa"), there's enough Aliens-like action to start whittling the numbers down right quick, with the subsequent genocide, betrayal, revelation, comeuppance, torture, rescue, and running battles all as predictable as the end of "The Matrix," but fun as hell. They even end in a battle between Blade and Novak (whose actor-Luke Goss-I'm liking more and more) that resembles more a no-holds-barred ECW match with Nietzcheian supermen than the hop-saki crap I've been seeing infiltrate the various action films out there. In fact, one of my favorite parts of this film is the distinct lack of that over-stylistic behavior, framing, and appearance. Blade may be dressed in the leather vest with all the little designer buckles and utility belt, but Novak has the raggedy, threadbare, and musty outfit of a poor man trying to keep out the cold. Nondescript, shapeless heavy coat and sweater, hooded sweatshirt, and worn brown boots, he really does look like a man forced by blind chance to scavange for his life. This puts him in direct contrast with the "normal" vampires and their decadent, perverse midnight raves of flaying and feeding. (The patrons are seen picking at the exposed spinal collumn of one celebrant at the rave, much to his enjoyment.)

    ‘Course, the film ain't perfect. All the surprises are great, but it appears that the SFX crew wasn't kept up to date on all of them. On most occasions, everyone just forgot that the main villians didn't have lower jaws. Not only didn't they speak with a really weird impediment, most of the time the FX people didn't think to black out their lower teeth. There's even a major plot point where Novak tears out someone's throat using his teeth instead of the mandibles so they wouldn't become like him. How the hell did he do that without any lower teeth? As a last nit-pick, apparently the FX visual editors were being lazy during an explosion scene. The lovely young goth love interest nearly gets caught in a blast and we see her from behind as she turns towards the brilliant white light. I think she must have been wearing something on her head that was the same color as the visual filter, because the bright flash of the explosion FLASHES OUT THE BACK OF HER HEAD! As another trifiling (anal) nitpick, the side of Priest's head gets cut off at one point, along with a bit of brain. The eye in that part looks around for a bit before burning up. That would be impossible, since the optic nerves cross over to opposite sides of the brain. The muscle control would've just gone dead.

    Finally, and most pronouncedly, the acting just fell apart at a few points. There's a father-son bonding-type scene between Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and Blade (Wesley Snipes) that, instead of being moving, evoked laughter from the audience at its pure idiocy and out-of character manner. The love- interest segments also seem terribly out of place considering the established characters, and really come off badly.

    Oh, and as a collecter of blades myself, I am just of the opinion that you shouldn't be blocking rebar with such a work of art. I kept wincing every time the blade skid along the steel ridges.

    In summary, a surprisingly good and fun horror/action flick that actually manages to keep itself grounded in the purpose of the horror while wandering off into gun, sword, and fist-fights. 
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