Cowboy Bebop is easily my favorite action anime series, partly for its relatively normal premises. I still had some trepidation in approaching the movie, released a few years after the last episode (but taking place in between two late episodes, AIUI). After all, Serenity disappointed many Firefly fans. And was CB:TM made only for people who'd seen the entire show, which I haven't yet? The answer turns out to be no, and I'll fill in the rest of you shortly.
In 2071, Mars is so terraformed that you could hardly tell it from a near-future Earth. In a Martian metropolis, terrorists spread an illness unknown to doctors and seemingly impossible to trace. With no leads, the authorities post an enormous bounty on the perpetrators, calling the attention of a ragtag band of perpetually underfunded bounty hunters (some of them slangily called "Cowboys") aboard the spaceship Bebop. Yeah, they ought to care anyway, but they try not to.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
America America (1963)
My reviews have slowed because of a big project I'm doing (unrelated to movies). For this reason, it was an especially bad time to receive a 174-minute disc. Nevertheless, I was a bit curious to see Elia Kazan's favorite of his own oeuvre—realizing that it was less so for quality than for personal relevance as the history of his uncle.
The plot's actually rather plain: In the late 1890s, young man Stavros, like many other Europeans, wants to move to the U.S. But unlike in other such stories I've seen, he takes an awfully long time to acquire enough money for a third-class ticket. One disadvantage he has is in being a Greek in Turkey. Most of his comrades either don't want or can't hope to leave, but after witnessing some of the Armenian genocide and realizing the Greeks might be next, Stavros won't accept his dad's plan for him to gradually pay the family's way to Constantinople.
The plot's actually rather plain: In the late 1890s, young man Stavros, like many other Europeans, wants to move to the U.S. But unlike in other such stories I've seen, he takes an awfully long time to acquire enough money for a third-class ticket. One disadvantage he has is in being a Greek in Turkey. Most of his comrades either don't want or can't hope to leave, but after witnessing some of the Armenian genocide and realizing the Greeks might be next, Stavros won't accept his dad's plan for him to gradually pay the family's way to Constantinople.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Rocketman (2019)
I've been listening to Elton John a lot lately, no doubt under the influence of ads for this. To me, even his more obscure songs are never worse than decent. The bio would have to be quite a bomb to keep me away. My folks came too.
The film begins with the artist (played in adulthood by Taron Egerton), in one of his wildest costumes, crashing a session of what might be Alcoholics Anonymous and announcing quite a few addictions and other behavioral problems. At the host's prompting, he starts telling his life story. From there, we mostly get unnarrated flashbacks, starting when he was five-year-old Reggie Dwight.
The film begins with the artist (played in adulthood by Taron Egerton), in one of his wildest costumes, crashing a session of what might be Alcoholics Anonymous and announcing quite a few addictions and other behavioral problems. At the host's prompting, he starts telling his life story. From there, we mostly get unnarrated flashbacks, starting when he was five-year-old Reggie Dwight.
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