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The Films You Watched Thread VI: The Undiscovered Movie

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    At one point, where they're being transported by a gorilla in a sports jacket in his kart, a kid in the audience exclaimed "It's just like the game!".
    Yes, yes it is.

    Anyway, I went to the cinema last night to see a cartoon!
    Now, it's not like those kiddy cartoons, this one comes from Japan and is definitely not aimed at kids!
    It's a little film called "Akira".

    My local cinema is showing some older films like Alien/Aliens and The Mummy and one of them was Akira (1988 via the cinema) for it's *gulp* 25th anniversary.

    Showing my age a bit, but I convinced my dad to take me to see Akira at the cinema around 1988.
    I'd heard about it, possibly in C&VG at the time and definitely in a magazine like Starlog or Starburst and it sounded amazing.
    As a kid, I'd always clicked with cartoons that had that unique style from Japan, like Battle of the Planets, Thundercats and Transformers, so I knew a film made in that style that was strong sci-fi would be right up my street.

    I spotted that it was being shown at Aston University's cinema, The Triangle and my dad was able to be badgered enough to take me.
    It's one of those niche nerd things you always remember - a film nobody really had heard of, let alone seen in the UK and I managed to get to see it, years before Manga Entertainment existed because their first release was Akira in 1991 on VHS.

    I was a bit panicked when the Clown Gang rip off the top of Tetsuo's girlfriend, worried my Dad would be unimpressed, but as I looked over, I was relieved to see he was already fast asleep, catching flies!

    Anyway, it was a joy to see on the big screen again and it was wonderfully loud.
    I think that opening 15 minutes where we're introduced to Kaneda's gang and we race through Neo Tokyo is one of my all-time faves.
    Such a thrill and finishing with a mysterious boy able to destroy buildings with just a scream.

    The animation is gorgeous too. I know there are ways to cut corners in animation, but there's none of the classic Hanna-Barbera repeating backgrounds and it predates computers filling in between frames, heh, even shipping it off to Korea for the in-between frames to be filled in on the cheap!

    So, for me, this is still and all-time classic that's a thrill to spend some time with.

    Comment


      Originally posted by QualityChimp View Post

      Anyway, I went to the cinema last night to see a cartoon!
      Now, it's not like those kiddy cartoons, this one comes from Japan and is definitely not aimed at kids!
      It's a little film called "Akira".


      Akira's an all timer. Really cool how you saw it before it was celebrated.

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        Originally posted by QualityChimp View Post
        I think that opening 15 minutes where we're introduced to Kaneda's gang and we race through Neo Tokyo is one of my all-time faves.
        Yeah, from the buzzing light outside the bar and the cd going on the jukebox to the biker chase in and out of the city ... so good.

        I remember discovering Akira on VHS. The funny thing at the time was the lazy assumption that all anime/Manga was of the same standard The animation is up there with the likes of Snow White, etc. Proper labour of love. It's on another level.

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          I perhaps didn't spell it out clear enough when you brought it up before QC, but seeing Akira in the cinema in the 80s earns you some serious nerd cred. I saw it when I was far too young also, but taped off the TV at the earliest opportunity following Super Play banging the drum for it, and even that was a major revelatory moment in my youth that had a serious impact on my tastes in just about everything. You can't even imagine how insufferable I'd have been had I caught it in a cinema years before that.

          From your other post too, I remember also being recommended Predestination. I did not do so well with that movie. Stuck with the premise for a bit, but it got wildly out of control and totally lost me.

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            It's crazy to think that Akira is so commonplace now, that it's a bit clichéd to know about it.
            It's just such a lovely memory of my dad taking me to some random tiny arty uni cinema to see some random subtitled cartoon, but he did it anyway and 25 years later, it still makes me smile. I just wish I could tell him, y'know?
            I'm definitely going to do stuff like that with my son, too.

            It really is a benchmark for animation, though and there'll never be anything like it again.
            Something like Spider-Verse is a phenomenally eye-popping experience, but nobody is going to hand-draw a whole film like Akira again.

            As the film started, I had a flashback to the early days of anime in the UK. There used to be crazily-expensive mail-order stuff like Bubblegum Crisis (8 episodes at £13 each!) and then Manga (later, Manga Entertainment) releasing stuff, but they soon lurched to the likes of Fist of the North Star and Urotsukidoji where the graphic content was the draw, rather than the fact that animation can deliver the kind of imagery that special effects at that time couldn't.

            CGI now could easily recreate the end sequence with Tetsuo out of control but at the tail end of the 80s, animation was the only way.

            Even now, I was staggered at the level of detail and spotted new things I'd not seen before.

            I think I've seen the VHS too many times, though as little bits of dialogue in the subtitles have changed. Just random things like Kaneda's girlfriend saying "Why, all of a sudden?" to "Why are you so cold, suddenly" or something!
            [MENTION=3822]fuse[/MENTION], yeah I wanted to like Predestination more, but ironically, it had an identity crisis, not knowing what kind of film it wanted to be. Worth seeing for sci-fi fans, but it's no Akira!

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              Well Akira is pretty good and all but I watched Scream 5.

              This was pretty rubbish to be honest. It actually got OK-ish reviews, three stars across the board, but that's generous for what's here. The plot itself follows the usual formula of a new Ghostface popping up in Woodsboro and offing members of a group of teenage friends. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette are of course also roped into proceedings, there are various stabbings, lots of metatextual comparisons between the events of the film and of the rules of horror films generally, and so on.

              One of the film's chief issues is the number of characters. Even at a relatively generous runtime for this type of genre slasher (almost two hours), there isn't enough time to satisfyingly develop everyone's relationships. This leaves Courtney Cox and David Arquette's scenes feeling oddly curtailed and out of place, while the central relationship of the film, between two sisters who are new characters, is difficult to care about thanks to limited screen time and hackneyed dialogue.

              I had a few laughs watching it and it passed a couple of hours pretty breezily, but it's not a good film. I had much more fun with the latest Wrong Turn.

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                I couldn't tell you where we're up to with these.

                Wasn't 4 like the "final chapter"?
                Neve Campbell's character leaves a gate open to symbolise she's finally able the let the ghost(face) of the past rest.

                There's been another 8 films since or something?

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                  They're not getting better despite what todays yoofs will have you believe

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                    Originally posted by QualityChimp View Post
                    I couldn't tell you where we're up to with these.

                    Wasn't 4 like the "final chapter"?
                    Neve Campbell's character leaves a gate open to symbolise she's finally able the let the ghost(face) of the past rest.

                    There's been another 8 films since or something?
                    They're up to 6, so far.

                    And yeah 5 also ends on a note of like, now we can all rest easy that Ghostface is gone forever.

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                      Faaarkinell!

                      That is my one-word review of Evil Dead Rise (2023 via the cinema).

                      This was a bit unusual in that it felt really clichéd, but that's what I wanted.
                      People leaving potential weapons lying around wouldn't be an issue in non-horror, but it feels signposted that you know that innocuous pair of scissors lying around are going to come back later in the story.
                      That's OK, though, because as the audience we know that things are going to go South pretty soon and can spot the setups, which is part of the fun.

                      Having recently watched Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, it was interesting to see the references.
                      Like the recent Mario, I hope they do more of these but don't feel obliged to say "Groovy" in every film, or shoehorn some other requote.
                      However, in this case, I was so into the story, I was surprised when they came, rather than expecting or demanding them.

                      In this case, the story isn't set in a cabin in the woods, it's in a small apartment block and the perfect storm comes together and basically, someone reads the Necronomicon and then they're all having a particularly bad evening.

                      This is hella gruesome!
                      There's some horrible imagery and a nice combination of practical and CGI effects.
                      Nobody is safe, though. It's not like you can single out the potential victims, it could be anyone, even kids!

                      I'm going spoiler-lite, but if you like any of the previous Evil Dead films and can stomach a lot of gore, then you're in for a treat.

                      I was wincing at a few moments, laughing at the events at others.

                      If you need a second opinion to how full-on it is, one guy got up and left and never came back, leaving his wife and friend to see the rest of it!

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                        ^^^ sounds class [MENTION=10111]QualityChimp[/MENTION] ... really fancy seeing that.

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                          Originally posted by Atticus View Post
                          ^^^ sounds class [MENTION=10111]QualityChimp[/MENTION] ... really fancy seeing that.
                          I reckon it'll be on the big screen for one more week, if you can't wait for the home release.

                          Felt like a cross between Evil Dead and Prince of Darkness.

                          I loved it!

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                            Glowing review, love the Prince of Darkness, need to see this.

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                              Just finished watching 2021 The Mauritanian on BBC2 about the appalling injustice and torture practices carried out by US agencies and the military at Guantanamo Bay.

                              Powerful stuff and, of course, it wears its heart on its sleeve throughout in delivering its message and withering condemnation of what went on there. However from a film drama point of view its unrelenting hammering home of that message went on too long.

                              Nevertheless it just about held my interest right to the end mainly because of the great performances from all the actors involved most notably Jodie Foster, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tahar Rahim.

                              Worth watching.

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                                I find all of your lack of thread seven disturbing


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