Abbreviewations: 2 movies, a book, an album, and a game!

Steamboy: Katsuhiro Otomo is the madman responsible for that which is considered the epitome of feature-length Japanese anime, Akira, the movie which is also pretty much responsible for introducing Japanese animation to American audiences. And after it’s release, things just got quiet. Why? Because Otomo was working on this. It’s not quite what you would expect a successor to Akira to be, and it’s not as deranged or ultraviolent, but it is still, in its own way, quite the masterpiece.

As you can gather from the title, this movie revolves around steam-powered technology. It is pure steampunk! Our movie’s hero is the young boy Ray in the year 1866, whose father and grandfather are scientists who have invented the Steam Ball, a sort of perpetual energy machine that is, you guessed it, steam-powered. Somehow. And when you create something like that, you just KNOW someone’s gonna want to use it for nefarious purposes, and someone’s gonna oppose it’s creation, and well, you can kind of see where the plot is going with this. The plot’s a bit weak, but the movie has lots of eye candy to make up for it, especially towards the movie’s climax as a huge battle breaks out during the London Expo. WITH STEAM TROOPERS. Seriously, that’s what they call them! And steam-powered jetpacks, giant mechanical arms, and more!

Like I said, not quite what one would expect from the creator of Akira, but it’s still certainly worth watching.


Blade II: I have never seen any of the Blade movies before, nor am I familiar with the comics. So what, pray tell, was I doing watching this? Well, it was directed by Guillermo del Toro, you know, the awesome director of the equally awesome Hellboy films, Pan’s Labyrinth, and the Devil’s Backbone? Yeah, that guy. That’s why I watched it.

It is just a straight-up fun popcorn-munching action flick. It’s not high-class cinema, not meant to be taken too seriously. The plot, involving a new breed of vampires with face-hugger-style mouths that drink both human AND vampire blood, is weak and not all too interesting, but the action is pretty great. I especially love how, when shot or stabbed by Blade’s weapons, the vampires are just INCINERATED. They explode into ashes, and it’s just so damn pretty.

Plus it has Ron Perlman (Hellboy himself!) as a vampire. Sure, he doesn’t do a whole lot, but man, it’s Ron fucking Perlman.


Dune, by Frank Herbert: IT’S DUNE. READ IT. I mean, okay, I have one complaint, and that’s that Feyd Rautha didn’t get to do much of anything and I didn’t really see what purpose his character served to the overall plot of the thing, BUT DAMMIT YOU SHOULD READ IT ANYWAYS BECAUSE IT’S DUNE.

(You can tell we're all a bit in love with Dune around here, can't you?)


Repo! The Genetic Opera soundtrack: I haven’t seen the movie (which comes out this month) or the stage show, but Repo is, well, a rock opera of sorts, taking place in the future, when organ failure is common. The company known as Geneco deals in the organ transplant business, but if you miss your payments? Then they send out the Repo-man to get the company’s organs back. Sweet, huh? Ultraviolent sci fi!

You really only get a very loose idea of the plot from this 22-song sountrack, but you shouldn’t let such a thing get in the way of enjoying the music. Being 22 songs in length, none of them reach the 4-minute mark, and there are a few duds but when it works, it works. It’s not all rock, and it’s not all opera, but this isn’t something like, say, Rocky Horror. The music is industrial, dark, but not without its catchy moments or sense of humor. When I first got it, I listened to it on repeat quite a bit, I was addicted, but now that I’ve eased back from it a bit, it’s not quite as epic as I first thought, but it’s still quite good.

Oh, and Paris Hilton is in it, but she’s not nearly as horrible as you might expect. But still, it’s Paris Hilton, meh.


Endless Ocean: It’s a Wii game in which you are a scuba diver, exploring the waters off the coast of the fictional island of Manoa Lai. You have no weapons or attacks, you can’t hurt anything and nothing can hurt you. All you do is explore, pick up artifacts, and interact with fish to learn Discovery Channel-style facts about them. It sounds terrible, but it’s really more fun than it has any right to be and is the most relaxing game I have ever played. For a Wii title, the graphics are great, and while the music provided is nice and soothing, you can put some mp3 files on an SD card to listen to while playing. Unfortunately, it just takes what song you pick and plays it on repeat while you’re diving until you go back to your boat and change it, so it’s best to pick a lengthy song that you don’t mind having a loop to it. I personally go for several Metroid Prime 2 tracks, for some reason.

If you’re bored with shooting things and solving elaborate puzzles and other typical, videogame things, do check this one out.

[Brett]