I Heart Blu Ray

In the last two days I have done something I haven't done in a good long time: Blind bought movies/tv shows. For a long time I was only buying movies or shows that I had seen before. Sort of building up my collection as it were. But between Thursday and Friday I have bought 4 blu-rays I've never seen before.

First was Paprika

In spite of my nom de web, I'm not a big anime fan anymore. I used to be a huge one back in the 90s, but at some point I feel as though the medium has passed me by. I have neither the money nor the stamina to keep up with all the series that are available now. And, unlike the early days of anime in America, there's no more natural barrier to keeping the crap out. Back then, only the cream rose to the top, because there wasn't as high a demand for "just any anime". Now the market is flooded with everything from disposable Funimation drek to true masterpieces from the likes of Otomo, Miyazaki and Kon.

Satoshi Kon is the incredible director behind one of my favorite anime feature films of all time, Perfect Blue. Paprika is a film about dreams, what they tell us about ourselves and being true to your true self. I highly recommend it to fans of "art films", thought provoking movies, and especially lapsed anime fans like myself.


I also picked up Next Avengers

This is easily my favorite of the five Marvel original animated films thus far. And it's a huge improvement over Doctor Strange (my least favorite so far, but that's a discussion for another time). The premise is a simple one. The Avengers settled down and had children. One day, Ultron (the killer robot) resurfaces and the Avengers must rally to defeat him. Their children are sent to live with former playboy and superhero, Tony Stark, for safe keeping. When their parents all fall in battle, Tony raises the kids to one day take up the mantle of their superhero family.

I think not being tied into any rigidly established continuity allowed the creators to focus less on trying to make things "fit" for older viewers and more on great storytelling. Appropriately, it also is the kid-friendliest of all the films thus far. Great for kids and adults alike.

I also bought Weeds Season 1 and Wanted.



Unfortunately I haven't watched Wanted yet so I can't comment on it yet.


I am, however, more than halfway through the first season of Weeds and will soon be going back for more. It's a great show. Satirical, insightful, and all the time, it is not preachy, or playing too much to my least favorite of genre trappings: "Woe are we! The suburbs are really so devious and horrible to live in!" (I'm looking at you American Beauty and every wanna be that's come around since). Also, it's hard to put any one character in a box. I like that in my fiction, because it's such lazy writing to say "this is the bitchy mom", "this is the loser dad" etc. Life never works out that way, so why should fiction.

Also, is it me, or does the youngest son, Shane, often seem like he's walked into this show from a completely different show of his own? And I don't mean that as a slight against the character, the actor, or this show at all. But when you have a show about a single suburban mom trying to make ends meet by selling weed, and her youngest son (here be some spoilers)




Shoots a mountain lion in the face with a BB gun, and he films a fake terrorist beheading with a neighbor's kid


(here endeth the spoilers)

He just seems a little left of center. But I dig that.

Oh, and Mary Louise Parker?
RIDICULOUSLY hot!

That's all for now. Now to try to get some more Resistance 2 trophies and hopefully get some Rock Band on later.