Dhoom Machale!
I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to describe Dhoom 2. I have such a disparate readership that I feel I’m constantly explaining or defending my hobbies and interests. If I want to describe a Hong Kong action flick or amazing anime series, I feel a need to lay the groundwork necessary for a non-fan to understand what I’m talking about. Applying standard Western movie values to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Indian films results in a fractured […]
Visual Novels
As part of a Top Secret Project, I bought and have been playing several Japanese visual novels lately. (For those unfamiliar: a visual novel is something like a graphic adventure. The canonical example is a high school dating simulation, where the player talks with several girls in his class over the course of a few weeks, and whomever he spends the most time on becomes his girlfriend at the end. This is usually accompanied by a few […]
Another Science Fiction
Megan Prelingerhas done society a great service: by publishing a book of commercial space advertisements from the 1950’s and 1960’s. These are the great old illustrations of rockets, moon bases, and astronauts, each reproduced in full color on glossy paper in this book that would look perfect on a coffee table. Each illustration bursts with optimism. This was the era where we would go to the moon, we would establish bases, and we […]
Beautiful Nightmares
I love poetry, though I know very little about it. I read arguably more poetry than most during my childhood, thanks to my parents and my home-schooling, but poetry’s always been a mysterious, otherworldly thing. Not something I can analyze. Which fits poetry well, now that I think about it. Such is the case with Galway Kinnell‘s The Book of Nightmares, which I finished reading a few days ago. It’s a themed […]
Meeting the Robinsons
Growing up, I wanted to be an inventor. I think it started with my Mom giving me a copy of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, saying, “I think you’ll like this.” Did I ever. I devoured Verne and H.G. Wells, then moved on to more modern SF literature. I was attracted to the role of the inventor, always coming up with new inventions. I knew it wouldn’t be as simple as it was in the cartoons I watched […]
All’s Faire
Imagine the cheesiest, cheapest Renaissance Faire possible. Imagine the weird, driven employees of said Fair. Imagine the Faire’s in danger of shutting down, and what those employees would do to keep “their” Faire going. That’s the premise of All’s Faire, a serial comedy showing on blip.tv. I stumbled across this on my Roku a few months ago, and was hooked by, of all things, the acting. This show is full of impressive comedic performances. I’d […]
Anna Karenina
I finished reading Joel Carnegie’s translation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina a few days ago. This isn’t a review. What could I offer that thousands of other reviewers haven’t? However, I will point out three things that stuck out at me: 1) This was an eminently readable book. This undoubtedly has much to do with Carmichael’s translation. For example, according to his notes, he spent a great deal of time […]
Transmetropolitan: GO
I just (literally, just) finished reading Transmetropolitan volume 1. And to understand it, I must explain its context. Unfortunately, I hardly know its context myself; I wasn’t into comics when Transmetropolitan debuted in 1997. I did (and do) have enough hazy awareness of the American comic scene to know that it was absolutely dominated by spandex-clad superheroes. Along came Warren Ellis, telling the story of an insane reporter (Spider Jerusalem; what […]
Gundam X
Note: This is part of my attempt to review every Gundam show that I’ve seen, which is almost all of them. This is a spoiler-free review, though I do describe the show’s premise and villains. After War: Gundam X was the third Gundam series set in its own timeline, and it suffered for it. G […]
Fight! Mobile Fighter G Gundam
This is the latest in a series of reviews about every Gundam series that I’ve seen (which, at this point, is almost all of them). My last review focused on Gundam Wing, but let’s back up for a minute. Before that, and after Victory Gundam, Sunrise decided to expand into new, “alternate universe” Gundam shows, […]