Midnight Ramblings

Lots of fascinating stuff!

First, the movie news.

Bryan Singer, he who made the X-films, has just announced his next project! Sorry, it's not X3. Singer's next is a remake of Logan's Run. If you've never seen it, I recommend it. It's the quintessential cheezy 1970s sci-fi film. See, in the post-apocolyptic future, the remnants of humanity live in a giant domed city. And, to keep the population under control, you die when you hit 30. Naturally, some people don't like this, so a cop named Logan is dispatched to infiltrate these rebels and shut them down. But, he begins to sympathize, and soon he's trying to escape from the city. Singer's new film is going to be more faithful to the original novel. And in the novel, you die at 21.

Now, random oberservation news:

I finally bought Pokemon 5 on DVD, and was geeking out throughout the whole thing. The first time I saw it was a year and a half ago when it was first released in Japan. And now, I finally saw it in English! The one thing that really made me geek out, though, was the fact that they didn't rescore it for North America! Original music, baby! Well, the only change was the one or two banal J-pop tunes were replaced with one or two banal, discount bin pop tunes. And when I was in Japan, I was always so tempted to buy the soundtrack. I don't know. These North American dubs had much higher production values when Warner Brothers was doing the dubbing. Miramax looks like they don't care.

And while Pokemon 5 is one of the lesser of the Pokefilms, it will always be the best Pokemon film experience for me. I mean, I saw it when it first came out in Japan. I saw it on a matinee when it was just me and a few dozen schoolkids who had skipped class. I had very little idea what was going on. But you know what? It was almost a cooler film when I didn't know what was going on.

But yeah. If I remember right, Miramax's deal to distribute the films in North America ended with 5. So that means we need a distributor for #6! I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I got the call from AEON two weeks before I left offerening me an emergency teacher position, the only "pro" I had on my "pro/con" list was, "I'll be able to stay in Japan long enough to see Pokemon 6." They had begun running TV spots for it, darn it!

And I always wonder about Pokemon. In 10 years, when everyone who's currently 12 is 22, will Pokemon have a similar following like how Transformers has a following now? Probably.

Anyway, after I watched Pokemon 5, I watched Kiki's Delivery Service again. That is one of the most charming films I've ever seen! It's just something about Japanese animation. It's like, here in North America, we've grown to be a very cynical society. And that cynisism leads to films like Shrek and Teacher's Pet. But it seems like Japan is still a very innocent society; one that still believes in magic. And it shows in their film. From the top films of Miyazaki to the bottom-of-the-barrel that are the Pokemon films, there is an honesty and a truth to the magic. It's not treated cynically.

And I think that's cool.

Next Issue: Latios and Latias - Guardians of Water