5,962 Forum Posts by "Dr-Worm"
So the Randomizer has selected me to pick this week's film! I think this week could be a popular one, and I think the first part of the selection is especially very, uh, for lack of a better term...Newgroundsy. It's also going be a very short one (I think just over 80 minutes total) and a very easily available one, so y'all have no excuse! Anyway, this week's film will be:
Three Films by Don Hertzfeldt! (USA):
Rejected (2000)
The Meaning of Life (2005)
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
Our very first animated Movie of the Week pick comes from Don Hertzfeldt, one of the most inventive and exciting younger filmmakers in the medium. He makes his movies almost entirely by himself through hand-drawn animation and in-camera special effects, all shot on an antique 35mm animation camera from the 1940s that's one of the last functioning cameras of its kind. Basically, almost nothing that you see in a Don Hertzfeldt film was made on a computer; you'll see when you watch the films why that's such a big deal.
Anyway, It's Such a Beautiful Day is the culmination of Hertzfeldt's work so far, an incredibly funny, strange, sad, beautiful feature-length collection of a trilogy of shorts (2006's "Everything Will Be OK," 2008's "I Am So Proud of You", and 2011's "It's Such a Beautiful Day") about a stick figure named Bill and his struggles with physical and mental illness. I can promise you've probably never seen anything quite like it.
I've linked to its Vimeo page, where it's available to rent for $3. That's dirt-cheap for a high-quality version of a fantastic independently produced movie and most of it will go to the guy who made it, but if for whatever reason you absolutely need to find it through other means (or if that version is region-locked or whatever, about which I'm not sure), you'll probably have to look for the three parts individually, so make sure you have the full version or at least that you're watching them in the right order! And if you're really having trouble I guess shoot me a PM and I'll see what I can do...
So since ISaBD is only about an hour long total, I've also included YouTube links to two of Hertzfeldt's earlier short films (around 10 minutes each) that you can watch to supplement the feature if you'd like. "Rejected" is a hilarious, irreverent, and grotesque (like I said, Newgroundsy) series of increasingly unhinged and disturbing fake "rejected" commercials, while "The Meaning of Life" leans closer to Hertzfeldt's more poetic and contemplative side. I think you can clearly see aspects of both of these shorts in ISaBD.
Taken as a whole I think the three films provide a really interesting look at the evolution of a filmmaker's style and themes over time, plus they're all just wildly creative and a blast to watch (well, maybe the achingly sad and poignant parts of ISaBD aren't quite "a blast," but you know what I mean). I hope you like them!
@Auz
@Sense-Offender
@Natick
@TheMaster
@Slint
@Sekhem
@Jolly
@Atlas
@NuScarab
@EclecticEnnui
@Makeshift
@HeavenDuff
@ZJ
@Darthdenim
@Oolaph
@Jackho
@darkjam
@Nebula
@Jester
@SapphireLight
@SG3
@Dean
@Piggler
At 3/3/14 12:20 PM, Natick wrote: it's not a bad idea when there's one for a genre but to put together what are essentially movie trailers for movie "heroes" (god, captain america is shit)
Nevermind Captain America, what about showing dozens of clips from Man of fucking Steel but not a single shot of Christopher Reeve as Superman? If that doesn't reveal the blatant commercial motives behind those montages, I don't know what does.
thank god 12 years a slave won best picture along with lupita nyong'o. every scene she had in that film made me want to start crying and hug her and i haven't felt that way about a performance in a long time. i do feel sorry for leonardo dicaprio.
Yeah, Her was probably my favorite of the BP nominees (btw, fuck the Academy for snubbing Inside Llewyn Davis) but I'm glad 12 Years a Slave won, it certainly deserved it. And Lupita Nyong'o was brilliant in the film.
i was about to quit watching when the act of killing lost to a posthumous win.
Ugh, yeah, that was frustrating but predictable. Challenging, complicated movies don't win Oscars.
So, The Insect Woman:
This was a pretty relentless and unsparing social drama with a couple profoundly strange formal (those freeze frames) and narrative (what the fuck is going on with Tome and her father?) elements thrown in. I think the film does a good job of empathizing with Tome without condoning her behavior. She's locked into a seemingly endless cycle of poverty and abuse that force her to prioritize survival and taking whatever she can get over doing the right thing, illustrated in certain repeating lines of dialogue as well as Tome's daughter's own attempts to get out from the same cycle.
I think that lack of options and single-minded drive for survival (very insect-like) are also underlined very well through the film's claustrophobic visual style and shot composition. Many of the film's wider shots consist of either several people packed into a cramped room or Tome getting lost in the middle of a huge crowd, while the close-ups tend to be uncomfortably extreme. It's an interesting way to visually express the film's themes and it leads to a lot of the film's most striking images.
On the other hand I found the film's insistence on contextualizing pretty much every stage in Tome's life within some aspect or event in 20th century Japanese history to be kind of odd and clunkily deployed. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a middling biopic, not a social realist drama, and those moments felt pretty out of place.
But if nothing else this made me really interested in checking out some of Imamura's later, better-known films like Vengeance Is Mine and Ballad of Narayama.
At 3/2/14 12:13 PM, TheMaster wrote: It was good, but probably the weakest Imamura film I've seen. Very bleak, unlike Pigs and Battleships has some humour in there to break it up a bit
Yeah, though I think there are some moments in the film that play as pitch-black comedy and lend a certain morbid levity to all the bleakness. In particular I'm thinking of the scene where the prostitutes chase down the cat to take its blood.
It's a tough watch simply because watching Tome's life go from bad to worse and kick all the hope and likeability out of her until she's an entirely detestable character isn't very pleasant.
True, but to the film's credit it also never lets us forget where she came from and never loses sight of the vulnerability underneath that detestable behavior. I think that might be the purpose of those weird sing-songy voiceovers throughout the film.
At 3/3/14 12:09 AM, Atlas wrote: Dropping by the thread by phone just to ask, what did you guys think of the Oscars?
They were pretty predictable and kinda dull but whatever. The themed montages were stupid wastes of time as always, they left Dennis Farina and Alain Resnais out of the In Memoriam (the latter I can understand since he just died last night, but the former...c'mon Academy), and DeGeneres's hosting had an odd lack of actual jokes, just lots of rambling half-assed light shtick and product placement. There's definitely a problem with the show when the funniest moments of the night by far are a clearly stoned Harrison Ford lunging for a slice of pizza and John Travolta coming down with a mean case of sudden-onset dyslexia.
Though I was happy to see Her win for Best Original Screenplay, even if it did cost me the win in my betting pool. And Bill Murray's little shout-out to Harold Ramis was sweet.
Also I loved how Matthew McConaughey's acceptance speech was pretty much the exact polar opposite of a Rust Cohle speech on True Detective.
This is a weird fucking future we're living in isn't it.
At 2/27/14 04:06 PM, Jester wrote: Been digging Blackbird Raum a bunch lately. Need to get back on my never-ending search for more folk punk bands I like.
Wow, I didn't even know "folk punk" was a thing (aside from like The Pogues or whatever). Two of my favorite genres put together! 8/10
At 2/22/14 07:31 PM, Viper50 wrote: Grateful Dead - Touch Of Grey
Pretty groovy! 8/10
Just gonna @ mention everyone to make sure they see there's a new pick.
@Auz
@Sense-Offender
@Natick
@Slint
@Sekhem
@Jolly
@Atlas
@NuScarab
@EclecticEnnui
@Makeshift
@HeavenDuff
@ZJ
@Darthdenim
@Oolaph
@Jackho
@darkjam
@Nebula
@Jester
@SapphireLight
@SG3
@Dean
@Piggler
Just a heads up that Criterion is having one of their 50% off everything sales for the next 24 hours. I'm definitely going to try to pick a couple things up.
I also just recently discovered that if you get TCM in your cable package you can log in on their site and stream anything from a rotating list of classic movies on demand for free. They only keep movies online for one week at a time, so you have to watch them quickly, but that also means they're constantly adding new things.
At 2/25/14 08:27 AM, TheMaster wrote: The Insect Woman, a 1963 film by Shohei Imamura.
Cool pick. I haven't seen anything by Imamura so this should be really interesting.
Wow we really blew the KFC (so to speak) last week didn't we guys. Sorry @Natick! But I promise I'll watch the MotWs I've missed at some point sooner rather than later!
So since he's, uh, the only person who participated I guess that makes @TheMaster this week's MotW picker! Yay!
By the way now might be as good a time as any to reiterate that the only way to get into the pool for picking the MotW is to participate in the previous week's discussion.
And since we now have someone picking for the second time, anyone who participates next week will be eligible to pick for the following week, even if you've gone already.
I also hope last week doesn't deter you guys from making more obscure picks in the future. It wasn't that there was a lack of interest, things just kinda happen sometimes and some weeks will just be better attended than others for reasons that have nothing to do with the film that was picked. So don't be afraid to get weird with it!
At 2/24/14 08:27 AM, Jolly wrote: Not sure if anybody else has done this, but I made a letterboxd list of the MoTW's so far. (Plan to keep it mostly up-to-date)
Nice, thanks! I did make a list but I never published it.
At 2/22/14 03:05 PM, Dean wrote: Watched Dredd last night and thought it was pretty good.
At 2/22/14 07:07 PM, TheMaster wrote: I also loved Dredd. Does everything an action film needs to do, and does it well.
At 2/22/14 03:10 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: Dredd was fucking awesome. I wish they would make a sequel. An animated miniseries based on the comics would be cool, too.
Have you guys seen The Raid: Redemption? It's an Indonesian martial arts film from a couple years ago and one of the best action movies I've ever seen. It apparently has a very similar structure to Dredd (to the point where the latter has been accused of plagiarism, though I think the two films were produced close enough in time to each other that it's probably just a coincidence) so if you liked that movie this one would be well worth checking out. There's also a sequel that's going to be released sometime this year I think.
At 2/20/14 07:26 PM, Atlas wrote: That's what I have heard. I will have to read it next year. I have been told the teacher who does it ruins the book though.
Nah, the book is way too good for that sort of thing. I had a truly godawful English teacher the year we read it in high school and I loved the book anyway.
At 2/19/14 11:22 PM, Darthdenim wrote: Anybody who doesn't want to see a Batman movie and be preached at about how the patriot act is necessary is a fucking moron.
There really is a bit of a mean right-wing streak to Nolan's Batman movies, isn't there.
At 2/19/14 06:45 PM, Dr-Worm wrote: I want my Y: The Last Man TV show, dammit.
Wait shit that's Vertigo isn't it. Whatever, point still stands.
At 2/19/14 06:17 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: If only Hollywood would give Image and Valiant some love. I'd like to see a good Spawn movie, and movies based on Youngblood, Pitt, the Darkness, etc.
I want my Y: The Last Man TV show, dammit.
At 2/19/14 04:08 PM, The-Great-One wrote: That's quite a roster to beat out and especially for those movies.
Forget it, The-Great-One, it's the Oscars.
I think it's not just knowing lots of shit, but being able to use that knowledge to make new and valuable observations and ideas.
At 2/18/14 05:48 PM, TomFulp wrote: The creator of Bioshock is basically shutting down his company to focus on a smaller team to make the game he wants to make. A lot of people in the comments are saying he's a dick, but I say, he's gotta do what makes him happy and not be a slave to what he created with Bioshock.
I seriously doubt that the PR boilerplate of Levine's statement is the full extent of what's going down over there. If it really was just that Levine wanted to move on and do other things and take 15 or so people with him, then why would that automatically necessitate shutting down the entire huge studio? They'd be more than capable of doing new projects with new creative leads.
What's far more likely is that Take-Two decided to close the studio for various financial reasons and this is how they've encouraged Levine to stay on with the company. This would hardly be without precedent considering the increasingly bloated costs of big-budget games (of which Bioshock Infinite is one of the biggest) and how lots of studios over the past few years have been shut down or experienced mass layoffs following big releases. The only thing that's changed are the particulars of the PR-speak now that small indie development and digital distribution have taken off the way they have.
So while I agree that it's not fair that people are calling Levine a dick or whatever (when he likely had very little if anything to do with this decision), I still think this whole thing is a pretty big net negative, a high-profile example of some disturbing industry trends that's resulting in lots of job losses. Not only that, but honestly I'm not sure this is even going to result in better games; I feel like the increased creative freedom and control could potentially only further allow Levine to indulge his worst storytelling instincts.
At 2/18/14 06:46 PM, ZJ wrote: Part of me likes the idea of games going digital, but I really fear the concept of games being a service and not a product.
Yup, exactly. And in addition to everything you said, the shift from product to service will also necessarily make games more ephemeral and potentially make the industry's already abysmal track record when it comes to preserving and archiving games even worse. With games as a digital service instead of a tangible product, games can be altered or even erased entirely by publishers or developers for any number of reasons, from the financial to the political to the personal. Maybe this is a pretty low-stakes example, but if Flappy Bird were released 20 years ago it would now probably be a hotly sought-after collectors' item. Instead it's ceased to exist entirely.
At 2/19/14 03:33 AM, Darthdenim wrote: I really don't get it when people rag on Marvel movies because of the humor. I think it's often a big part of what makes the movies so fun.
Because a certain large and vocal contingent of dorks are incredibly defensive and insecure about liking things that might be perceived as being meant for children. These would be the same kinds of people who obsess over all the "dark" humor that "snuck past the censors" on their favorite kids' cartoons or who insist that their favorite video games are actually mature solely by virtue of being rated "Mature."
At 2/19/14 02:23 PM, Gagsy wrote: ahh I can't not see Parks and Recs Andy Dwyer
Though this character seems more like Bert Macklin, FBI.
At 2/12/14 08:41 PM, Viper50 wrote: Misfits - Horror Business (Full EP)
Classic, obviously. Not sure what else to say. 9/10
Wow, I'm actually really excited for this movie now, it looks like it's going to be so much fun (I never expected to see a tentpole superhero movie trailer set to "Hooked on a Feeling"). I'm really happy and pleasantly surprised (not being very familiar with the comics or James Gunn's previous work I guess) that they're going with a lighter tone for this. I think the use of humor in Marvel's superhero films has consistently been one of the best parts of those movies (and something sorely lacking in DC's), so it'll be interesting to see them veer even further in a comedic direction.
Everything (about this movie) is Awesome.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller seem to have a unique talent for taking projects that easily could have been soulless cash-grabs and turning them into so much more.
At 2/18/14 12:23 PM, Sense-Offender wrote: I thought this movie was gonna have Adam West as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. That would have been neat.
It has Will Arnett as Batman. Which is even better.
At 2/16/14 07:02 PM, Natick wrote: Killer Joe (2011)
Interesting. I've heard some wildly divergent things about this movie so we'll see how it goes. Also oddly enough this might be my first NC-17 movie (though that doesn't really mean much considering I've seen plenty of things that were simply never rated by the MPAA).
if i am violating the rules by putting up something too recent
Nope, that's totally fine (though I do hope people start picking some much older stuff too) as long as you've made sure it's readily available somewhere, which is the only major potential problem I see with picking something really recent.
Speaking of which, just a heads up: for those of you who have HBO, Killer Joe is currently available for streaming on HBO Go.
At 2/17/14 06:59 PM, Atlas wrote: I've decided to watch some of the films from the National Film Registry. I'm going to do one random pick from each year and unlike my 80's movie marathon I will actually do this. I'm starting tonight with Intolerance!
That could be a pretty good resource to find stuff, though it only includes American films! My personal favorite resource is the They Shoot Pictures Don't They 1,000 Greatest Films list. Obviously no list can be perfect but I've found that this one has a pretty great variety of countries, eras and genres.
At 2/16/14 03:43 PM, Oolaph wrote: Forgot to watch The Stone Tape yesterday, I'll catch it tonight and talk about it tomorrow. Oops.
Yeah I'll probably have to do the same. If I don't watch it and make a post tonight I'll definitely do it tomorrow.
So since I doubt anyone else is going to swoop in within the next couple hours, and because he's the only person who participated this week and hasn't picked yet, I might as well call it early:
@Natick will be picking this week's film! Remember the guidelines and whatnot!
Which means next week there's some possibility that everyone who's participated will have already picked, and if that doesn't happen next week it'll happen soon enough so we might as well figure it out now. So if that happens which option do you guys think is better:
1. We start over through the same order and make it a permanent rotation, adding in new people as necessary.
or
2. We put everyone's names back into the randomizer and make a new order each time.
Or if you think of something better than either option speak up!
At 2/16/14 05:13 AM, Dean wrote: It's for these kinds of films that I was mostly interested in this idea. I feel like there are an absolute ton of "must see" films that, for one reason or another, I haven't watched.
I feel the same way, and I think that's what a lot of the MotW picks will end up being.
At 2/15/14 06:45 AM, TheMaster wrote: So did I accidentally kill film club?
Hahaha, no not yet. I'll definitely be watching the film sometime today and I'll get involved tomorrow.
I'd imagine this is about as obscure as we'll ever get here though, so if there's decent participation this week that's a good sign for the future.
At 2/15/14 08:19 AM, Dean wrote: Can't remember if I've already made this post, but I became slightly less interested in participating when I realised that the idea was to recommend obscure/lesser known stuff.
I mean, that's not necessarily the idea (The 400 Blows and The Wall are hardly obscure movies). The point is to pick movies that most of us haven't already seen and that hopefully fall outside our usual comfort zones. So while yeah, that can tend to result in some more obscure picks (plus I'd imagine some people want to use their picks as an opportunity to promote and talk about movies they don't see getting enough attention elsewhere), there are also plenty of classic, widely well-regarded films that just haven't gotten onto our radar yet for whatever reason; maybe it's an older film, or it's in a foreign language, or it belongs to a genre we haven't explored much.
I think MotW could potentially give us an opportunity to nudge ourselves into exploring that kind of new territory where normally we wouldn't, that's all. Or even if it's nothing that dramatic, we'll at least end up seeing good shit we might not have otherwise.
but most of these films that have been recommended just haven't appealed to me for whatever reason. And I don't even mean I started watching and then gave up, I didn't even start watching.
Then how do you know whether or not they'd appeal to you?
Like I said, the whole point is to help nudge ourselves out of those sorts of preconceived notions. It's almost always worth it.
Uh, why would you/how can you make an "in-depth review" of a four-minute preview? That's like reviewing a trailer. And it seems especially silly considering the actual show is premiering in just two days.
But anyway, yeah, I remember watching that preview a few months ago and really loving it. It's hard not to crack up at the image of Clarence and the other kid giggling like Beavis and Butthead while one shaves the other's head. And the characters seem really well-defined and likable right out of the gate. A lot of shows dealing with similar material tend to either paint their nerds and outsiders in such broad strokes that it rings false or make those characters' outsider status a purely informed quality. But these kids are true weirdos, of the types we all grew up with (or were ourselves) but that are rarely made the main characters of a TV show. It's great.
At 2/15/14 04:01 AM, HollowedPumkinz wrote: Overall, this show has some pretty great potential, I think most of CN's viewers are burnt out on surrealism
I wouldn't say I'm burnt out on those kinds of shows (Adventure Time is still one of my favorite shows on television, I love Gravity Falls and Steven Universe has potential), but it's always nice to have more variety, and I do miss the more low-key realistic vibe of shows like Hey Arnold. So I'm definitely looking forward to this.
At 2/14/14 10:41 PM, Atlas wrote: I was against making a Letterboxd account previously due to the amount of films I would have to rewatch but I've decided to make one and the first film I've added is The Great Gatsby! Quite a joy watching that film.
Wait, you know you can add films without logging them, right? The site doesn't force you to rewatch something you've already seen before adding it, you can just click the eye icon or press "save" without checking off anything else to create a log of everything you've already seen in addition to the film diary stuff.
I've added plenty of films on there that I haven't seen in over a decade and don't plan on ever watching again.
At 2/14/14 06:33 PM, orangebomb wrote: Honestly, I seem to have a general mood swing with the characters
Can't that sometimes be the mark of a good character though, as long as the reasons for the frustrating behavior make sense for that character and aren't just contrived for the sake of plot or drama? Even if characters like Shinji and Asuka aren't always likable, I still think they're always compelling, and their behavior is always consistent with the characters as we know them.
But I can understand where you're coming from. I mean, up until the very end of this past season of Mad Men I pretty much couldn't stand Don Draper most of the time, even though nearly everything with his character "works."
(Aside from Gendo, Keel and SEELE, which I believe that Hell is too good for them for all of the shit that they pull off, and there's tons of them)
Yeah, there aren't many characters on television more loathsome than Gendo Ikari. Though he does get that great little pathetic humanizing moment at the very end (I can't remember whether it's on the show or in the movie). It doesn't excuse any of the horrible shit he does of course, but I like how we get just enough of a sense throughout the series that there's a lot more going on behind those shades than what we see firsthand.
The mech battles range from pretty good and even surprising, to anti-climatic and even Pyrrhic at times.
I really like those anti-climactic and Pyrrhic victories, though. The show uses them sparingly enough that it adds to the sense of realism and desperation I talked about in my last post without becoming gimmicky or forced.
I'm not going to put Evangelion ahead of Gurren Laggan, which basically gives the double-barreled middle finger to Eva's cynicism and never ending torment
Gurren Lagann is lots of fun and all, but it's pretty easy to for a show to not be cynical when it takes place in a cartoonish universe that bears almost no resemblance to our own. Eva actually tries to say stuff about the human condition and shit. Gurren Lagann practically treats obstinate stupidity as humanity's greatest virtue.
I'm just happy and impressed that the same studio can make two such diametrically opposed works that are both still good.
and arguably needless window dressing
The utterly pointless Christian imagery motif (didn't Anno or someone basically admit in an interview that they only included it because they thought it looked and sounded cool?) might be my least favorite thing about Eva. I thought that was the sort of ostentatious, indulgent crap the show was supposed to be deconstructing.
I think the whole onanism thing (and the whole sodomy thing, while we're at it) is one of those Biblical quirks that's so blatantly based on ancient attitudes and the result of an ancient church shoring up its own interests that it seems downright silly to still obey it (though FWIW I'm Jewish and not particularly religious so my knowledge of these things might be a little shaky).
An incipient church needs a constantly expanding membership of extremely loyal followers to survive and thrive and spread its message, and the best way to get that is to grow those followers itself. So obviously the early church wanted to encourage its members to make as many Christian babies as possible, and obviously they accomplished that at least in part by condemning any non-reproductive form of sexual release.
Not to mention that this was a time period where for most people sex was probably one of the few consistent forms of pleasure and release in what was often a grim, laborious, and short life. If the church can control that aspect of its followers' lives, it can control lots of others too as a result.
Condemning sexual release leads followers to sublimate their urges and frustrations through even more fervent devotion to the church. This is a basic tactic still used by all sorts of fundamentalist and extremist religious groups; I don't think it's a coincidence that the vast majority of al-Qaeda recruits are young single men.
But obviously it doesn't have to be that way. Even if the Bible really was originally the word of God, it's been through a several millennia-long game of telephone to get from him to you, passing through the hands of countless men who have had all sorts of different reasons to change the phrase.* I think the sooner you realize that, the happier you'll be and the more easily you'll be able to reconcile being Christian with being human.
Also there are plenty of churches out there that totally don't care about this sort of thing to begin with, and I would avoid the ones that do care like the plague anyway if I were you.
*One fascinating/infuriating recent example: since around the late 1970s, certain major American evangelical bibles have been reprinted with a new translation of a passage describing the proper punishment for a person who assaults a pregnant woman such that they cause her to miscarry. They altered the wording because the original passage implied that a fetus wasn't equivalent to a human life.
At 2/13/14 10:38 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I like how you have to encourage us to ignore the entire first clause of the amendment to make your point.
At 2/13/14 11:30 PM, TheGasMan wrote: So my tax dollars can go to preserving some waste of space when a bullet from a firing squad could end the situation all together?
The death penalty is actually substantially more expensive for the state than life in prison, because of its long and elaborate appeals process.
In the future you might want to try doing five minutes of research about the actual facts surrounding a controversial subject before forming an opinion about it, instead of relying entirely on kneejerk emotion.
murder, rape, molestation, identity fraud.
One of these things is not like the other.
At 2/14/14 10:23 AM, Vinnyy wrote: I believe the death penalty should only be used if there is sufficient evidence to prove 100% that the person is guilty.
Which is rarely possible, if you really mean 100% and not just beyond a reasonable doubt.
Otherwise, we might potentially execute an innocent person.
Which actually happens or nearly happens more often than you'd think.
So why take the chance when there's no real benefit to doing so other than barbaric and ultimately short-lived catharsis?
It's a goddamn masterpiece. A frequently inconsistent, often compromised one, but whatever, the show practically turns those things into strengths (see: the elevator scene).
I think people might be turned off by it because its themes of depression and abandonment and adolescent isolation hit too close to home. It's a relentless downer of a show, which I guess can throw people off when they're expecting more fun giant robot fights.
But even the action stuff is better than what I've seen on most shows like this. There's little in the way of crazy spectacle or badass posturing, just palpable danger and desperation (like how the EVAs are nearly totaled and their pilots are sent to the hospital after almost every fight, or the EVAs' refreshingly realistic technological limitations). And I think it's clever how each Angel is like a puzzle that needs to be solved in a completely different way, it reminds me a little of Shadow of the Colossus or something.
At 2/14/14 10:42 AM, Auz wrote: It's too bad they screwed up the ending so badly they had to release a film to fix everything. From what I heard, they had to rush the last episodes to meet the air time date.
I kinda liked the ending of the TV show better. They really made the most out of limited resources (it wasn't just that they were rushing to meet a deadline, they also essentially ran out of money).
