Blog, Blog, Bloq

 Recently, I've been watching and reading some stuff that has ranged from bad to great. While I am leaning toward doing an eventual write-up on Kazuki Hiraoka's manga, The Urban Legend Files. Today's piece is going to be about the Taiwanese Horror-Comedy film, Dead Talents Society, that was directed by John Hsu. A movie that has instantly become one of my favorites. It's charming, it's melancholic, it's hilarious. Just a complete package of a film that has earned its critical acclaim. DTS makes me question whether people watched it when it came out, as it should've garnered way more awards. This movie deserves the world and then some. But why does DTS deserve so much? Obviously, there's a lot of angles to attack this idea from. Yet, the best one for me would be the character writing and performances. These key factors make the whole concept and execution work. Without them, DTS might've just been another film. But before I get to the crew of the Luck...

 Had a few things swirling around in my mind this week. And the winner of it all was the one and only Piku from Pikuniku. There's just something about seeing the little, red creature that brings unbridled joy. So, the focus of the piece is to look at the appeal of Piku, and a few other characters like Piku that I enjoy. But first, I must answer the question of, "Why Piku?" Originally, the "Why" question was answered when I saw the little guy dancing to some nice tunes. However, after playing the game, I can say that this answer stayed the same. With the additional element of it's fun to be Piku, and in some cases Niku. There's not much more to it than that. Simplicity is the key to the secret sauce of Piku, and I'm going to break down what that means to me in this instance.  And what better way to do that, than to look at Piku's design. A sleek, little red bean with two legs and two black dots for eyes. Just tons of personality on its face, with ...

 Back at it again for another round of posting. For this piece I was deciding between talking about Capcom's Pragmata, or this Texas Chainsaw Massacre idea I had in my head, and Texas won. It's not because there's anything wrong with Pragmata, but I felt like this would be more interesting. Without further ado, let's talk about family once again.  In the last month or so, I had finally got around to watching Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Two flawed films that signaled the downward trend for the franchise. However, they weren't nearly as bad as the later films, in my opinion. Like, TCM III had bright spots with Ken Foree's performance as Benny, and Viggo Mortensen's Tex. While TCM: TNG had the "Pretty Lady" evolution with Leatherface (Played by Robert Jacks) and Tonie Perensky's Darla. But the overall products failed to match the rawness of the original TCM, or the evolution that T...

 This week has gotten me inspired to talk about one of my favorite directors. The one and only George A. Romero. While I have only watched a handful of his films, the mark on my taste and expectations exist because of people like him. While I can't wholly relate to the man and his era, I understand what he's putting down to an extent. The times are different, but all the same. Things may look like they have changed, yet they really haven't. And that's just one of the things that I came away with when I watched movies with the Romero name on the front.  In the same vein as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left, and David Cronenberg's Shivers, Romero was able to look at the nature of man and pull out the ugliness along with its beauty. People are complex and need to be showcased as such in order to make an impact in the messaging being brought forth. So, the goal today is to talk about some of  the Romero films I h...

 Given my indecisiveness leading up to this week's post, I decided to look at influencing in movies. A pretty general topic that let's me jump around to different things and describe what works and what doesn't work from these influences. Whether that be wholesale ripping something off, or using another piece of media or news story as a springboard. This is about the pieces that shape a work. To ease into this topic, I am going to use A Nightmare on Elm Street as an example. The film was made in response to Wes Craven seeing the deaths of Hmong Refugees in the news. Seemingly random deaths that were most likely caused by the usage of chemical weapons. But the jumping off point for Craven wasn't the horrors of war, it was the hallucinations, and unwillingness to sleep that caught his attention. So, the film was born out of this fear of a boogeyman that haunts your dreams. Even the look of Freddy was based upon a random guy Craven saw when he was a child.  The core idea b...

 With the upcoming adaptation of Ace of the Diamond Act II's Second Season, I've been thinking about how this series has stood so tall within the sports genre. This thought came off of my recent viewing of Oblivion Battery. Mainly because they're both about Baseball, but also because they both handle their storytelling quite well. With Oblivion Battery, you have a more individualized story revolving around a team of misfits that featured top High School Baseball players. Whereas AOTD featured a top level High School and the structures within that make the machine run. So, Oblivion Battery ended up feeling like the product of modern sports anime/manga, while AOTD definitely harkened back to its older contemporaries. And this might just be more of a lack of knowledge on these types of sports series, but I have never really seen anything like AOTD before. The series has shown so many different characters and changing teams as the story progressed, while balancing them like no ...