Madmind

„And I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation”

Go watch Kick Ass! This movie kicks some serious ass. And sorry for the bad pun we all read thousand times already. (And be warned from heavy spoilers (see red flag besides the title if you’re reading this on my site)).

Wait a minute. Could you please stop for a moment? Hey! Come on…wait. I mean…hello? Please, calm you storm, okay? … Is there a ‘Pause’ key on this one? What the Styx is going on? Could you please wait a….oh man…

The basic premise of Clash of the Titans is not bad in itself. We have Perseus who hates the gods and decides to fight them. On the way to win we got the monster of the minute and a hot damsel in distress. That’s good enough to me. But the execution of director Louis Leterrier is so damn fricking fast and messed up that I didn’t even start to care a shit about what’s going on or the characters – and that’ only one problem of many.

Panem et circenses. Bread and games. Oh boy, nothing beats the Romans with putting out charming philosophies which worked liked a charm, until…well.

Rollerball is is the sci-fi-e revival of this motto but while the Rollerball audience had its share of fun I frantically tried to find the “games” part i.e. “fun” i.e. “thrilling” i.e. “moving”. Somehow the director seems to have forgotten that.

Akira is the anti-thesis to Disney in any way you can think of.

In other words: you can take almost anything except animation and the negative version is Akira. Where Disney is easy to understand, Akira is hard to understand. Where Disney is fluffy, Akira is hard as a brick. Where Disney animates people as if they are bad over-acting actors, Akira is about realistic animation. Where Disney is “for children”, Akira is for adults etc etc pp ad nauseam, I think you get the picture.

I really can understand that Akira, at the time of its release in 1988, blew the mind of western audiences.

Basically this is also the reason you have to watch Akira, even if you don’t like anime or animation. Even with all its flaws Akira is not called a landmark animation, even a classic, for no reason.

You know, I don’t want so much from life. There are only some things I wish for – a good  and entertaining movie is such a thing. Hence I love each and every movie that just gets this one thing right that entertains me, makes me laugh or wonder. As I recently had again to learn with Avatar this is rare nowadays. But it’s not impossible. Because where Avatar failed so miserably Tokyo Godfathers succeeded.

Tokyo Godfathers blasts Avatar to atomic dust to with its funny and lovable characters, with its simple yet engaging story. Even more: it does it so well I even don’t care about the deus ex machinas and some other small problems it has.