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sub_dividedWatched a few episodes of this absolutely horrible anime last week: The Wolf and the Spices. (Link via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
severefun, whose taste I still hold in high esteem despite our differences here.) That review (of the light novel series) and the story's premise (medieval tradesmen meets pagan wolf goddess of wheat harvest, attempts to use her to increase profits) make the anime sound like it could potentially be awesome, but sadly, it isn't. It's just kind of boring and low-budget. Maybe if it had been set in ACTUAL medieval Europe rather than a fantasy version thereof, or if it had involved ACTUAL trading rather than an RPG version thereof[1], or if the main character had had an ACTUAL personality rather than a dating-sim version thereof[2], it would have been good. As it stands, though...
The pagan wolf goddess is far and away the best part, too bad she couldn't save the thing. Skip!
[1] Main character's advice to would-be traders: "Everyone starts out at the bottom, just keep trying and working hard and you will eventuallyrise in the seniority-based corporate hierarchy learn the tricks of the trade and become as awesome as I am!" Uh, somehow I don't think unregulated mercantilism works that way?
[2] He would not have been so lame, except that he turns down multiple perfectly obvious offers of sex for no reason.
***
Also last week, I saw Michael Clayton, the movie with George Clooney as a "fixer" at a corporate law firm. It...was good? Very well written and acted, smart, and self-contained? This movie is really above my ability to critique. ^^; But I'll try anyway. George Clooney's character -- or we could just call him Michael Clayton -- is a compulsive gambler but otherwise fairly competant. However he suffers from not really having a place outside of the niche he's carved out for himself. (Just like Clooney's character in Syriana! Jury still out on whether this was the only similarity.) The movie begins (after a brief preview of just before the climax) with Clayton is called in to handle the mess after a long-time friend of his, who is the principle defense lawyer in a class-action lawsuit against an agribusiness giant, goes off his medication and harasses a key witness for the prosecution. Corporate skullduggery and various other forms of low behavior follow. The ending is pretty good so I won't spoil it for you. Overall, the movie's strongest suit is its characters, who are all very well observed and true-to-life, while its weakness is that it tends to want to reduce them to their essential parts. You wouldn't think that a movie about a crazy man possibly not being entirely crazy would be reduction-ist, but Michael Clayton really is. There's a palpable smugness to the thing, also, though I didn't mind this too much since I'm from the same general area (NYC metro region) and background (parents are lawyers).
There are some really killer scenes though, like the scene when the manic-depressive defense lawyer suddenly becomes lucid, or the scene when everything has just gone wrong for Clayton and a jerk at a card table inadvertently twists the knife. There are so many good scenes, in fact, that they practically string together into the entire movie, and I certainly enjoyed Michael Clayton while I was watching it. Though I did sort of wonder whether it was entirely necessary for the female COO to be that vulnerable and unsure of herself. That's why the ending, while cathartic in an action-movie kind of way, wasn't as great as it could have been.
***
"Watched" No Country For Old Men last night (in fact I was reviewing frequently-asked interview questions in between youtube-ing highlights from Spring Fashion Week 2008 -- wait, shouldn't that be the other way around?!) and...meh? Gorgeously shot movie full of larger-than-life-characters (or caricatures), but seeing as how the psychopath who drives the plot is just a psychopath, his only motivation for killing being that he is a psychopath, I wasn't sure what the point was.
severefun, whose taste I still hold in high esteem despite our differences here.) That review (of the light novel series) and the story's premise (medieval tradesmen meets pagan wolf goddess of wheat harvest, attempts to use her to increase profits) make the anime sound like it could potentially be awesome, but sadly, it isn't. It's just kind of boring and low-budget. Maybe if it had been set in ACTUAL medieval Europe rather than a fantasy version thereof, or if it had involved ACTUAL trading rather than an RPG version thereof[1], or if the main character had had an ACTUAL personality rather than a dating-sim version thereof[2], it would have been good. As it stands, though...The pagan wolf goddess is far and away the best part, too bad she couldn't save the thing. Skip!
[1] Main character's advice to would-be traders: "Everyone starts out at the bottom, just keep trying and working hard and you will eventually
[2] He would not have been so lame, except that he turns down multiple perfectly obvious offers of sex for no reason.
***
Also last week, I saw Michael Clayton, the movie with George Clooney as a "fixer" at a corporate law firm. It...was good? Very well written and acted, smart, and self-contained? This movie is really above my ability to critique. ^^; But I'll try anyway. George Clooney's character -- or we could just call him Michael Clayton -- is a compulsive gambler but otherwise fairly competant. However he suffers from not really having a place outside of the niche he's carved out for himself. (Just like Clooney's character in Syriana! Jury still out on whether this was the only similarity.) The movie begins (after a brief preview of just before the climax) with Clayton is called in to handle the mess after a long-time friend of his, who is the principle defense lawyer in a class-action lawsuit against an agribusiness giant, goes off his medication and harasses a key witness for the prosecution. Corporate skullduggery and various other forms of low behavior follow. The ending is pretty good so I won't spoil it for you. Overall, the movie's strongest suit is its characters, who are all very well observed and true-to-life, while its weakness is that it tends to want to reduce them to their essential parts. You wouldn't think that a movie about a crazy man possibly not being entirely crazy would be reduction-ist, but Michael Clayton really is. There's a palpable smugness to the thing, also, though I didn't mind this too much since I'm from the same general area (NYC metro region) and background (parents are lawyers).
There are some really killer scenes though, like the scene when the manic-depressive defense lawyer suddenly becomes lucid, or the scene when everything has just gone wrong for Clayton and a jerk at a card table inadvertently twists the knife. There are so many good scenes, in fact, that they practically string together into the entire movie, and I certainly enjoyed Michael Clayton while I was watching it. Though I did sort of wonder whether it was entirely necessary for the female COO to be that vulnerable and unsure of herself. That's why the ending, while cathartic in an action-movie kind of way, wasn't as great as it could have been.
***
"Watched" No Country For Old Men last night (in fact I was reviewing frequently-asked interview questions in between youtube-ing highlights from Spring Fashion Week 2008 -- wait, shouldn't that be the other way around?!) and...meh? Gorgeously shot movie full of larger-than-life-characters (or caricatures), but seeing as how the psychopath who drives the plot is just a psychopath, his only motivation for killing being that he is a psychopath, I wasn't sure what the point was.