Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 18th, 2020
Getting thrown into the middle of a film or television series is a daunting task, especially when you can't just reach out and grab the source material. For example, today's review are three films that are set after a manga book collection as well as a 13-episode television series that is available on Blu-ray, but by another production house and would cost me thirty bucks. Hardly an ideal situation, but one I wasn't going to back down from. Donten: Laughing Under the Clouds - Gaiden is our review today and tries to tell us in nearly three hours what happens after the Yamainu take down the Orochi and the struggle to lead normal lives in the wake of such a cataclysmic event.
Film One: One Year After the Battle -
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 12th, 2020
A common thread in fairy tales and stories of long ago is for there to be a perfect female that is amazingly romanced by a not-so perfect male. In fact, he is usually average, clueless, and clumsy beyond belief. During the narrative, we realize that the female is only perfect on the outside and is somehow flawed on the inside. In the end, they live happily ever after. The story changes sometimes in details, genders, and other minor pieces of information, but is overall the same in theme. Today, we explore White Snake, which is a prequel to the Chinese fable, Legend of the White Snake. Let's take a look.
Feathers fall to the earth and sea; a giant snake slithers along the ground below. The reptile goes behind a rock, and out the other side comes a beautiful girl named Blanca. She starts to float and then chants magic words as she falls into white nothingness. Strings with hands reach out to grab her from all sides and she struggles to break free.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 6th, 2020
One of my main pet peeves in my life are the people who seem to hang on a celebrity's every word, or worse, a reluctant celebrity who gets pushed into the limelight because of a heroic deed or misdeed. I have little desire to be famous (except to be published and recognized as a writer), but if I were, I am pretty sure I would labelled as a recluse and shun the public eye constantly. Today, we explore Summer Days with Coo, a tale about a Kappa who is found by a boy after centuries of being fossilized. Then suddenly he gets thrust into the limelight with some unfavorable results. Let us see what this one has to offer.
As we open, we hear a young kid ask his father about dragons. The father talks about the creature, saying they are scary but are good sorts. We then see the kid and his father and realize they are Kappas, water spirits or demons depending on your point of view. Suddenly they hear a noise and realize that Lord Shimizu is coming their way. The father tells the son to hide while he talks to the human.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 7th, 2020
I think most people have had the fantasy of what a film of their life would look like through the camera lens. The high points, the low moments, and everything in between. Perhaps it would be boring (probably most of us), or just perhaps it would be brimming with excitement. Whatever the situation, we just hope that somebody else would find it interesting or at least star our favorite actor or actress. Today, we bring to you a review of an anime that tells the story of Chiyoko Fujiwara, an experienced actress, through one filmmaker Genya Tachibana's passion and the lens of his cameraman, Kyoji Ida.
We are in space where a female astronaut says her goodbyes as her crew pleads with her not to go. The countdown starts. The screen shifts back to Genya Tachibana, who is watching this presentation, which we now realize is a film staring the great Chiyoko Fujiwara. An earthquake shakes the film room where Genya is watching. It stops after a minute, and Kyoji Ida comes in and tells him that they need to go. The filmmaker gets up and starts to follow. He stops and then decides to rewind the tape he was watching. As he leaves, we watch the monitor display various moments of Chiyoko's film career. Cue credits and emotional music.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 10th, 2019
IMAX films are the perfect source material to show off the capabilities of the UHD Blu-ray/4K format. Most of the films we watch in theaters today have been shot around 2.8 K and mastered at just 2K. A 35mm film actually shot on film has a native resolution of 4K. The IMAX film format uses 65mm and 70mm film that increases its native resolution well beyond our 4K televisions and players. They are relatively short and have a ton of bandwidth to deliver the best possible image and audio. Shout Factory discovered this as soon as the format was launched, and Upcomingdiscs was there to check them out. The titles have slowed down in the last year, but they haven't stopped. And just in time for Christmas, you can take a journey down under to visit with beautiful sea turtles in Shout's new IMAX masterpiece, Turtle Odyssey.
Meet Bunji. She's a sea turtle, and when we first encounter Bunji, she hasn't even been born. She's the last turtle to hatch out of a clutch of eggs that have been buried under the sands of Australia by a mother who has months ago already departed this area. Bunji must work her way to the surface where she faces a gauntlet of deadly challenges just to make it to the water. Hungry birds dive all about her, but she eventually makes it to the relative safety of the ocean, and we're about to follow her life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 14th, 2019
Musical mockumentaries can often be hilarious. One has to look no further than Spinal Tap to see how funny it can be to blend music with comedy and shoot it like a documentary. However, it is a delicate balance between fun, smart jokes and perhaps going too far for a simple punchline. Today's film is Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which has received a brand new steel book from the minds at Shout Factory. This 2016 film was considered a bomb at the box office, but it has found a home in disc and digital thanks to the gag-a-minute style of Andy Samberg and his supporting cast of musical celebrities and comedians. Let us take a look inside this limited edition and see if "Conner4Real" can take on a cult-like status with this film.
We open the story with Conner (played by Andy Samberg), who tells us about growing up and being dope. He then meets his two best friends, Owen (played by Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (played by Akiva Schaffer) who later go on to form the rapping group, Style Boyz. Their first single is the tune Karate Guy. But as they grew up, the group was not as strong as originally thought. So they broke up, with Lawrence quitting the business and becoming a farmer. Owen became a DJ and tagged along with Conner. Conner became "Conner4Real" and went solo to huge acclaim. Despite his antics and habit of ending up in the tabloids, his music gathers a ton of fans and fame.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 8th, 2019
We are back with another collector's edition from Shout Factory. This time we tackle the much celebrated Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which was released in 2001, when it did so well that it ended up on our domestic shores in the following year. It was absolutely adored by critics, and here is a fun fact. I have never seen it. Little did I know that the American trailers I was seeing around this time were warping my idea of what the film was really about. Finally, after all of these years I have had the opportunity to watch and digest such a fantastic film.
Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl, is trying to relax in the back of her parents' car. They are on their way to a new city, with a new school, and the young girl is having none of it. As they search for the house where they are going to live, the father decides to use his four-wheel-drive and take off into the forest in hopes of making a shortcut. But rather than finding their new house, they end up at a long building with a dark tunnel that appears to go somewhere exciting according to the parents.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 22nd, 2019
As a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's, I quickly grasped the concept of a good short. Whether it was a tiny piece before the movie started at my local cinema or a Looney Tunes cartoon on my 13-inch television, I saw how hard it was to capture the audience in the span of such a small frame of time. However, when those directors are able to capture that lightening in a bottle, it can produce some amazing results. Today, we are taking a look at Genius Party and Genius Party Beyond and see if a few of these fantastic directors can create a memorable slice of anime.
Genius Party and Genius Party Beyond are two collections of shorts released in 2007 and 2008 respectively. It is twelve pieces by twelve different directors with different animation styles. In the following bylines, I'll try to piece together what each of these takes are about and then have some broad comments after.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 5th, 2019
I think most men as they take on the journey from boys to men usually encounter a fascination with an older woman. Usually it's nothing more than an infatuation, an impossible ideal that even the woman herself can't live up to. But the ideal of what we think of her is important to our growth and vital to exploring our feelings. In our film, Penguin Highway, we meet a boy who becomes fascinated with an older woman named Onee-San. However, the mysteries surrounding this lady are numerous and turn this common coming-of-age story into something extraordinary. Let us take a look.
It is June 29th; the temperature outside is a breezy 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit). Aoyama is in the fourth grade. He is smart, and he studies hard. The student has a very bright future ahead of him. Importantly, Aoyama is high on himself, but he is not conceited, and that's what makes him great. On the way to school, he stops by a bunch of children his age who are looking out into the field. There appears to be a gathering of something, but nobody can make it out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2019
Dateline: September 13, 1999
Mankind has been storing all of our nuclear waste on the far side of the moon. On the other side of the lunar surface was Alpha Base. Here mankind had a research station which also served as a launching point for deep-space missions. An unfortunate chain of events led to the unthinkable. The nuclear waste pile was ignited, and the whole dump exploded with a force so powerful that it tore the moon out of Earth's orbit and sent it hurtling through space. The 311 inhabitants of Alpha were swept along for this uncontrolled flight into uncharted space. Of course, the year 1999 is no longer science fiction to us now. It's going on ancient history. There has never been a base on the moon. In fact, we haven't been back since the end of the Apollo program in the 1970's. If you check tonight, you'll find that our only natural satellite is still firmly planted in its familiar orbit around our planet. Space 1999 never happened.
