Things I Listened To: Vinyl Fantasy VII - MF Doom and Cloud Strife

I woke up this morning at 8am so am far too tired to write a coherent post. 

It's sunny and warm out and I'm inundated with landlords trying to tell me about how great their places are on Spareroom. My back hurts slightly leaning forward to type on my Chromebook - the battery on this thing is dying and I really need to invest in a new laptop soon. 

Not a Chromebook though - something I can use Photoshop on the move.

I've been replaying GTA IV again and it's pretty damn fun. No bowling please.

Enjoy the mashup~

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Things I Watched: Nintendo's Super Mario Maker 2 Direct - It Looks Great

I was a late adopter of the Wii U so I never caught the original Mario Maker craze. At the time it seemed a little beyond my interest. I didn’t have a strong care for design; I also didn’t really like platformers. Like the direction of a passing breeze though, such things change, which is why I’m fully on the hype train for Super Mario Maker 2.

If you’re at all interested then I’d consider sitting through the video above. I really like Nintendo’s direct-to-customer approach in the way they handle these things. I feel it helps their marketing brand tremendously. Sony recently adopted a similar style but they’re clearly still ironing out the kinks - they only offer choice moments whereas Nintendo load up their offerings like a giant slab of gaming pie.

The game comes out at the end of next month, June 28th to be precise.

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Things I Watched: Fugue - A Polish 'psychodrama' about being unable to let go

Fugue is a psychodrama meaning it’s not the type of film I often watch. 

I gave it a go because I don’t feel I watch enough new movies and MUBI is running a ‘New Auteurs’ season. This one is Polish, released last year and made by a female director called Agnieszka Smoczynska. 

The film begins in disequilibrium with the sight of a disheveled woman stumbling into a subway station. It turns out she has been involved in an incident. Two years later she appears on a national television program designed to locate the families of missing persons. Her father calls the show and she rejoins her family, although she doesn’t remember them and now thinks her name is Alicja.

MUBI’s description suggests Fugue explores the ‘traditional role of women in society’. I felt had more to do with overcoming past trauma because, to me, Alicja’s lack of memory highlights her desire to start again, but obligations and family - including infant son - represent an inability for her to do so. 

Basically, it sucks the life out of her until everyone around her accepts that there's no turning back.

Good movie.

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Things I Watched: Macross Plus - Dogfighting, Killer AIs and Space Romance

Macross as a franchise has had a bit of turbulent history. 

The original show aired in 1982 and quickly became something of a cult classic. A stripped down but technically pleasing movie adaptation followed two years later. It then took an entire ten years for a sequel to emerge, Macross II. This was quickly written off by the show’s original creator Shoji Kawamori, before a slew of spin-offs descended upon us much like the show’s Zentradi villains.

This includes Macross Plus, an OVA which takes place three decades after the war between Zentradi and Earth. The remaining humans who were living aboard the Macross at the time have built a new civilisation around the now decimated spaceship. They’ve done an enormously successful job because the world is now a flourishing techno-haven. 

They’ve even got as far as creating an AI musician who attempts to completely take over the world. Consider this a loose plot summation.

In many respects the show (movie?) is similar to the original in being a love story set in space. This one features a love triangle between three characters: Myung, Guld and Isamu. The last two both long for the hand of Myung who is confused by who she longs for most. 

This lends her consciousness to manifest inside on AI unit which proceeds to seek vengeance, control or lust. Something like that.

Overall it’s pretty chaotic and great. Lots of aerial dog fighting.

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Things I Watched: The Cherry Orchard - No Good Images of this Movie Exist

Cherry blossoms have a special place in Japanese culture. Known for their distinctive rose-petals, they're used as a symbol to reflect the passage of time. They bloom in Spring and last for roughly two weeks before they start to fall. This is about the same time as the annual school year begins in Japan, which is why they've become synonymous with the transition into adulthood.

The Cherry Orchard is a film based on a manga called Sakura no Sono. It concerns a group of schoolgirls who put on a performance of Anton Chekhov's play. This is an part of an annual school tradition that stretches back yonks. Unfortunately this year things are thrown into jeopardy because of the mischievous actions of one of the girls who's been caught smoking in a local restaurant. Uh-oh.

The film deals with a lot coming-of-age themes. It boasts instances of LGBT+ qualities which I find interesting as Japanese cinema rarely does. These are detailed best in a lovely scene towards the end where two girls take photos with each other just before the start of the first performance. Its director, Shun Nakahara, was previously a specialist in eroge films, which is irrelevant for the most part but might explain why the film seems to be absolutely and utterly love with its own characters.

All in all, it's a nice film. You can watch it on YouTube.

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