May 2004 Archives

Welcome to Silent-Movies.Com

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection : a 4 DVD set containing 58 uncut Looney Tunes cartoons. Lots of good ones, but plenty good ones missing, like What's Opera, Doc. Guess I'll have to wait for the Golden Collection II.
• Master and Commander : I'm a huge Aubrey & Maturin fan, having read the entire series, and am working my way back through it. The Books On Tape version, with Patrick Tull reading it, is simply amazing! This was the last movie I actually saw in the movie theater, and the sound and picture was completely immersing. Probably going to lose a little on my TV, but hey, it still should be a good demo disc.
• The Sopranos Second Season. A friend of mine just gave me this. We watched the first season together after gaming was over for the evening, so we'll work our way through this one too. Great stuff.

Here's what The Scout Report has to say about it:

While it is relatively easy to find information on the latest romantic comedy vehicle from 20th Century Fox or the latest apocalyptic disaster from Warner Brothers, finding substantial material online about quality foreign films and classics of various cinematic movements is a bit trickier. Fortunately for cineastes, there is the Masters of Cinema website, which provides links to information about DVD releases of such films, along with articles about their technical specifications and clarion calls to the companies providing such releases. From their mainpage, visitors can learn about upcoming releases, read articles about such auteurs as Bruno Dumont and view wish lists from well-known film critics as Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader. The site also has a nice links page, which is divided topically into areas such as directors, online cinema writing, and DVD review pages.

Also, be sure to read about the cool link I just posted: Masters of Cinema

Perfect Blue is the 1997 Japanese anime about a pop singer who is trying to make a career change and get into the movies. But there are complications and her dreams become reality, or is it vice versa?

Mima Kirigoe is a member of the Japanes girl pop group, Cham, but she wants to make a change. She (and her handlers) is anxious to get into the movies, as an actress, and so announces her retirement as a pop star during a concert, and then starts acting in murder / mystery called Double Bind. This news is not accepted nicely by most of her fans; in particular, one deformed guy takes her change of heart very seriously.

As Mima gets further and further into the movie, her role expands. The screenwriter siezes the opportunity to take advantage of her former career and begins to intertwine her old reality with the movie; so much so, that even Mima starts to get confused, trying to figure out the blurry line between the movie and her life.

The disillusioned fan doesn't help. He runs a web site that claims to be "Mima's Room", and purportedly has a daily dairy of hers, all of which is created by him. Mima starts to get halluciinations, seeing a reincarnation of her prior self, once again performing with Cham, who are becoming very successful without her.

Suddenly, people involved with the movie begin getting killed in gruesome fashion, and her world gets even more topsy turvey. Her dreams, the movie, and "reality" all become intertwined, so that she is no longer sure where one ends and the other begins. More murder and mayhem follow, questions are answered and the solution revealed.

All in all, probably the best Anime movie I've seen. Most of the other ones, like Spirited Away and Akira, all hinge on some sort of strange metaphysical happenings. Perfect Blue is more or less a "normal" thriller, which is both good and bad. It's good in that it is an interesting story, with some tense moments. It's bad in that it is a cartoon and sort of hard to take serious, at least for me.

The animation isn't all that great, certainly not up to par with the latest of today. There are some nice effects, though, and the movie is easy to watch. I broke with my normal policy and watched the English dubbed version and it was pretty good. It certainly doesn't give your speaker system a real test, but the sound effects are solid and there some real creepy theme music. Extras on the DVD include a "Mima's Room" "website", which has some music outtakes and the like, and some interviews with the English voice actors.

So I'd say this is worth at least a rental. The story was good and the ending very plausible. They did a good job of mixing reality, dreams and the movie, although they nearly go over the line. Give it a try!