Bartimaeus

Alien 3 (1992). If not enjoying big dumb Hollywood action blockbusters is a sin, then call me Antichristus Bartimaeus, because Alien 3 is far and away the better and more enjoyable film compared to Aliens - I actually rather enjoyed it. Though that comes with the caveat that I watched the "Assembly Cut" version of the film, which is half an hour longer than the theatrical cut and supposedly restores a great deal many scenes that help flesh out the characters better. The special effects, of course, aren't nearly as impressive (or flamboyant) as Aliens, but they're fine enough to carry a solid core of a film (this film actually had tension at various points - wow, imagine a horror film having tension!). Well, outside of a few scenes in particular that had visibly bad lighting/color balancing for the xenomorph anyways, .

Aliens (1986). In "honor" of James Cameron's Avatar 2 coming out soon (not that I've actually, you know, seen the first Avatar), I finally watched Aliens. Historically speaking, I don't have much appreciation for James Cameron's work: I don't care a ton for Terminator 2, I thought Titanic was pretty terrible, I got ten minutes through Avatar before I turned it off (though the only thing I really remember about it now is that Sigourney Weaver was coincidentally in it)...buuut the original Terminator is pretty enjoyable as far as really silly action flicks go - at least from what I can remember. I loved the original Alien when I saw it about five years ago (even with the one lady screaming and crying throughout the entire film...well, not quite the entire film as it turns out, heh), and I waited to see this because of my apprehension for Mr. Cameron's work. So how does Aliens stack up? Well...right off the bat, Sigourney Weaver's doing a pile of bad lines in corny scenes with nearly theatre levels of over-acting, and trust me that I know that it ain't Ms. Weaver's fault; we also have hundreds of xenomorphs running around like ants zerg-rushing everywhere in grotesquely bad action scenes starring the cringiest possible 80s space marines. At least the film has a lot of special effects that the film gratuitously idles away on, right? Sigh...I tried to wait a long time to watch this so that I could be kind to it (as watching right after having seen and loved the original would almost certainly be a very bad decision), and it turns out for good reason. No, even accounting for the totally different style, it does not measure up very well against the original: it's a hollowed out, rotten husk of a film that put all of its time and focus into all of the wrong things in an apparent deliberate attempt to be a near perfect opposite of the original film. As far as cheesy popcorn 80s monster mash action flicks, I guess it might be okayish - it starts getting very mildly enjoyable once Sigourney actually springs into action instead of having to listen to all the other Hollywood paper cutout bozos do the world's worst acting job. Not that it's their fault, James Cameron is just a woefully insufficient actor's director (and never mind the writing). Bleh, all in all, it was about what I expected.

I don't necessarily mind "chunks" if they're actual chunks of fruit as opposed to a vile gelatinous mass, which is what that "jam" was like. Chunks of raspberries would've been wonderful in comparison to that.

Yeah, I should probably clarify my previous statement: I've only ever had jams with seeds in it when it's a type of jam that normally has seeds. Raspberry was the jam in question, and it kind of messed up its taste, but really messed up its texture - I'm the type to heavily mix anything of this nature before using (because I think texture consistency is possibly even more important than flavor to a degree), but even with that said, it became grossly goopy and difficult to spread, and whatever I tried to put it on it would just slide right off because of said goopiness. Perhaps it's an issue specific to raspberry (or other types of normally seed-packed jams), because I've definitely had specialty jams made out of fruits that don't have seeds and not had an issue before. Regardless, if there's a seedless option for a jam, I am certain to avoid it from now on. Good luck figuring out the cooktop. Major re-arrangements of that nature always take some getting used to in addition to figuring out exactly where and how everything should be...

Yeah, I thought the show having a strong focus on the characters and them being pretty good together was the key to making the show worth watching for me, particularly as someone who pretty adamantly refused to enjoy any anime show from that time period or beyond. A few more episodes of Yawara: A Fashionable Judo Girl. This show sort of reminds me of my experience in watching the first season of Ranma in a way - it's got stuff that's stupid and which I don't necessarily like but which I'm forgiving/accepting because I do seem to be overall enjoying the show regardless...for the moment. Like Ranma, that could be subject to change at any time, particularly given that this show has 124 episodes. Yawara received a "rival" in the form of another girl who has become dead-set on defeating her, but Yawara seems to be generally unaware of their rivalry and instead tries to treat her nicely and help her out for the most part. There was a televised local judo contest that the rival went to and dominated, and Yawara neither attended nor watched it because she was more concerned with trying to figure out how to cook a specific dish. It's silly, but that's certainly better than doing the opposite and going full "I HAVE TO BECOME STRONG AND DEFEAT HER!" or anything like that. There's also an older (i.e. early 20s) reporter guy that the show has had a focus on since the first episode that's been following around Yawara in an attempt to document her judo skills because of an incident that he was a firsthand witness to where she skilfully incapacitated someone, and...the way his character has been framed so far, you would think that the show was eventually going to try to set them up romantically, but the thought of this annoyed me so much that I looked it up and found out that's not the case - they just eventually become friends. Okay, I can accept that.

I have discovered that seedless jam is apparently vile. I had not previously known this due to only ever having had jam with the seeds in it, and I certainly did not expect the difference to be so stark. It is an error that will never be repeated.

Episode 1 of Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl (1989). A frustrating first episode, since it was like half pretty decent and half pretty bad. Yawara, the main character, is a seventeen year old girl being raised by her grandfather who was a judo master; he is insistent that she devote all her time and energy to training to judo and preparing to qualify for the Olympics in three years. Yawara has others ideas: she has a crush on a local boy idol from her school, and would rather concern herself with normal girl stuff like that and fashion than judo. So there's your overarching conflict for the show, at least for the time being. The issue? Well...Yawara herself is O.K., but her grandfather is a complete meme of a character (and not in a good way) that feels straight out of some comedic shonen show like Dragon Ball. Constant over-the-top old-man-yells-at-clouds style interjection about anything and everything in addition to caustic obliviousness to his granddaughter's need for a shred of space and independence: we're talking searches and re-arrangements of her room when she's not at home, following her around at school, completely ignoring everything she asks for and says while pretending not to hear or understand her, trying to ruin the crush she has...all this in the first episode! It's really extreme and didn't feel like a good balance of elements, particularly because way too much of the episode's run time was seeing things exclusively from his preposterous perspective. If he was a little more reasonable and grounded while genuinely trying to push Yawara forward to achieve something great, it would feel so much better...but right now, he's like an antagonist that belongs to a different and much more stupid show than this should rightly be. Damned stupid 80s wasting all the good animation on bad writing and characters. There was more to like in that first episode than say...I don't know, that lousy Maison Ikkoku show, but will it be enough to keep my interest? Yeah, probably not.

To be honest, I don't really even know what I wanted exactly from the game, because I don't want like...a full-on platformer or collectathon or anything like that, that would be awful and I would definitely have no patience it. But from what I played of it, it felt like playing...the wolf sections of TLoZ: Twilight Princess, but more linear and where you can only make those lame Midna-scripted jumps that can't fail, except instead of the lovable Midna I have a little robot thingy? Maybe it's just me not having slept for more than 3 hours each day over the entire past month that I'm even more irritable and short in tolerance/patience than normal...

Stray. The only thing I saw proper of this game was its initial announce, and I recently heard about the highly positive reviews. So I played about an hour...and I wasn't terribly impressed. It's effectively a dolled up and slightly more exciting than usual walking simulator, and a seemingly completely linear one at that. For some reason, I expected there to be like...platforming of some kind, something to take advantage of the unique element of being a literal cat, but this isn't a game where you can jump or even accidentally fall off anything. Maybe I went in with the wrong expectations.

The great downfall of a wireless mouse: losing the fingernail-sized USB receiver and being rendered completely powerless.

Trash source: Our empty oceans: Scots team’s research finds Atlantic plankton all but wiped out in catastrophic loss of life The planet is almost certainly past its tipping point for humanity's survival on the scale to which we are accustomed to (i.e. 7 billion people); it will be curious to see how much longer it takes for entire food chains to collapse and start killing off human en masse as well. Will the planet be too far gone for that to matter by that point, or will killing off a substantial amount of humanity actually allow it to stabilize and eventually recover? The worst-off people in the poorest parts of the world are certain to be the ones affected the most by it at least initially, while the majority of us will likely be fine for the remainder of our lives (though less can be said for the our descendants). "Interesting" times ahead as always, it would seem...

Every good anime has a baseball episode. See: this, Sailor Moon, and Steven Universe, . This show has the weirdest art style - there are times where I actually quite like how the aesthetic and character designs look, and there are other times where it makes me want to get the flamethrower out. I hope Najimi is completely wacko and insane (but in a fun way), because their design certainly suggests they should be.

It sometimes feels a little post-apocalyptic when bunches of them (5-10) wander down the streets together and aren't phased by other people or vehicles. I guess it's better than panicking and smashing their faces into vehicles at full speed, but they really just don't care.

"Sick" poster art, though:

Hm, I think it's probably my favorite concluding act to a Hayao Miyazaki movie - not that that's saying much, given that I tend to not care for the endings of his movies. I mean hell, for his movies, Princess Mononoke is probably my second favorite final act after Nausicaa. I like Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service all at least a bit more than Princess Mononoke, but all of them have pretty anticlimactic final acts that left me somewhere between slightly disappointed and quite cold (with Howl's Moving Castle being the worst, which is especially egregious given how much I adore the first 2/3rds of that film - it would probably be my second favorite Ghibli movie after Whisper of the Heart if not for how much the final act makes the movie implode). Well, our opinions almost never align (and in fact, much more often they're diametrically opposed than not), so I suppose it's only natural we can't agree here, . On a side-note, I can't help but feel there's a pretty natural comparison of Nausicaa to Miyazaki's Future Boy Conan: Nausicaa feels like the more adult (or more precisely, treating the viewer more like an adult), more concise, and more satisfying version of their respective stories. If you like the longer form of a TV show combined with a more lighthearted tone and an ensemble of characters, I guess there's value to be had in Future Boy Conan...but I'll take one Nausicaa over the entirety of the cast of Future Boy Conan, thank you very much. Thanks for the article - some interesting background for the film there, and also I did not realize that Ghibli films have a history of failing that badly in the States. I'm kinda surprised they keep trying if it keeps going so badly, .

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984). The titular character feels better integrated with her world and community within the first fifteen minutes of this film than Ashitaka ever does throughout the entirety of Princess Mononoke, giving her (and us) a reason to actually care about the ensuing events, and really, that's all that needs to be said...but I'll say more, both positive and negative. While she and Ashitaka may both be Mary Sues that basically never have incorrect impulses or decisions, she at least doesn't always perfectly succeed at what she intends to do, and nor are there ego-stroking sequences where she clearly goes beyond what is reasonable or possible (think Ashitaka disarming and knocking out both Lady Eboshi and San in the middle of their battle in the most "I am the shonen protagonist" way possible, followed by him getting shot in the chest and continuing to carry San to safety with barely a stumble, then with him lifting up a million pound gate with one hand even while losing gallons of blood, concluding with him finally collapsing only after he and San are safe so that she can take care of him...it's all so incredibly eye-rollingly male, it just about makes me want to puke). Nausicaa also doesn't say stuff or express herself in a way that makes me think she's an alien like Ashitaka frequently did...not to mention actually having somewhat of a personality, which he critically lacked (probably deliberately in order to make him a better viewer stand-in, but even if that's the case, I still did not like it). Nausicaa is rougher around the edges: the animation is a little more inconsistent (and to me, not as appealing for the most part even if it's still great), the sound design is more crude by far, the silly tiger-lemur thing shouldn't have been in the film because it adds very little to it or Nausicaa herself (actually, it probably takes away from Nausicaa because she's already shown to have a knack for communicating with animals by that point, so adding on even more by having her instantly tame the little bugger was a bit too much, particularly when it kind of just stuck around pointlessly), the film feels just a little lackadaisical and/or off-kilter at times (it's made in the 80s...), and really, Princess Mononoke seems like the tighter and more focused film in general...but Nausicaa and how the movie directs itself around her isn't the rotten apple that spoils the entire thing, so let me once again make it very clear that I value characters above literally everything else by saying that Nausicaa handily wins the comparison against Princess Mononoke almost entirely because of that, . Now if for some reason that doesn't matter to you (or if you can accept and/or identify with Ashitaka for what he is, which presumably a large percentage of people are able to do considering that he was clearly designed to be a viewer stand-in even as unfortunately male-coded as he and the movie are...on top of lacking any kind of personal perspective to give him some kind of cause or motivation for anything), then I can understand liking Princess Mononoke more. It's a shame too, because I like the setting, a lot of the themes, and the ideas of characters in Princess Mononoke, but...I've watched Princess Mononoke three times now, and it just doesn't come together for me; Nausicaa may start off slow, but it does.

I watched it again, and I think I liked it even more. It's a really...cathartic movie, at least for me. Beneath the veil of silliness is a simple but powerful message that hurts so bad but also just fundamentally feels good, in a way that a lot of other movies try but almost universally utterly fail to achieve. Without the themes and characters shining so brightly for me, I probably wouldn't go for the silly action or mad-hat style of narrative, but since they do, it's okay.

Tales from Earthsea, part 2:

Tales from Earthsea (2006). Hey, maybe it's not as bad as I thought it was when I watched it, time to go into it with a clean slate once again. ...Or maybe I just wanted to watch Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind last out of these lot, so I could end on a high note, . "I sense the Light dimming, Your Majesty." "The Light?" "The Light of the Balance that sustains the world." Four and a half minutes in, and I already know this isn't going to go well because of these lines. It's not just because of how dumb it sounds, but the context of it as well: this is the wise king talking to his loyal archmage, and "The Light" and "The Balance" sure sound like important concepts in this world...that apparently the king has never even heard of. There are ways to introduce these concepts (even as boilerplate as they are) to the viewer, and using the king and his archmage just ain't it. Once again, at least I'm watching in Japanese so I don't have to actually hear this stuff out loud. The Byzantine-ish fashion of the royalty looks nice, though...not that they stick around for long, what with Prince Patricide running the show.

I once tried to watch The Last Unicorn, think I only got about halfway through. I remember hating the titular unicorn, but I don't remember for sure why. Similarly, it's been two years since I watched Tales from Earthsea, and mostly what I remember is a cast of characters that called into question the wisdom of the current legal status of abortion in the U.S. (particularly with regards to the protagonist), a world that felt like it was only a couple of Baldur's Gate 1 wilderness areas large, a pathetically generic and one-notey soundtrack, wondering what the heck the movie was trying to accomplish throughout its run time given that it's clearly supposed to be a crappy shonen adventure film, and it having an ending so bad that I wanted to turn off the universe. Perhaps I should revisit it so I can possibly upgrade my 2/10 into a 3/10, because that seems like a good use of my time, .

I don't know if it was like this everywhere else, but in 2020 aka Year of the Covid, for literally about two months after July 4th people were lighting up fireworks late at night...every night without fail. Death to fireworks and those who light them.

4th of July has become my least favorite holiday over the last few years because of both this phenomenon and because so many of the people who most fervently celebrate it seeming to be less than my ideal kind of people. To all of those who are decent and sane still trying to hold the fort down, I salute you...but it might be a lost cause at this point.

Ah, now everything starts to fall into place...

Oh no, don't worry, I have the soundtracks and the movie for Whisper of the Heart, . (e): Ninja-ed by majestic. A friend of mine actually described watching Princess Mononoke as being like playing a video game - with the viewer being Ashitaka, the protagonist. It's a weird comparison, but it somehow makes sense and is kind of along the same lines as how I felt. Angel's Egg:

I mentioned that I might re-watch this one because while I saw artistic merit, it felt like I just didn't get it which made it difficult to actually enjoy...but I didn't expect to watch it again so soon when I wrote that (I was thinking more like a year or two from now), and I surely didn't expect that my impression of it would change so much. Well, perhaps that's why I was motivated to re-watch it this quickly, because it stuck with me longer than I expected. Angel's Egg was cute, a little haunting, moody and atmospheric, oh so pretty...and I actually really liked and enjoyed it. It's still incredibly slow, super understated, and laden with symbology, but I was okay with that - heck, I got chills down my spine a few times and even teared up at one part. Still don't think I could recommend this to @majestic based on what I know of his tastes, but I'm glad I gave it another chance - I usually...eventually try to do so in these sorts of "I don't get it, but I don't dislike it either" situations. Also very much what @kirottu said in that you kind of have to find your own meaning/value in it, I think. This is the film I most wanted to re-watch right after Princess Mononoke because I felt as though these two had a number of similarities...but I didn't want to force @majestic into watching it before he was ready, so what a happy coincidence that he decided to watch it all on his lonesome. I'll get back to your post after I've re-watched it in Japanese as well. The music is undoubtedly the best part of Princess Mononoke - I may not keep the film around, but I sure will keep the soundtracks.