Of Anime and Monsters
Last night a bunch of us went to see Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence here in Lawrence. I love seeing big-budget anime in the theatre. This is a friggin’ GORGEOUS film, too. The plot is fairly straightforward Japanese existential cyber-noir—the meaning of life in a world of enhancement and robotics, that kind of thing. But the DETAIL. Especially on the architectural pieces–there’s a fly-by of the huge headquarters of a corporation that looks like a giant gothic cathedral with Chinese elements (General Kwan statues on spires and the like) that was jaw-droppingly beautiful.
I was hoping to see a trailer for the new Katsushiro Otomo film, Steam Boy, his first full-length theatrical animation since AKIRA, but no such luck. I’ll have to be satisfied with the trailer and clips on the website–click the link for anime steampunk-y goodness.
I came home and caught the second and final part of Hallmark’s mini-series version of Frankenstein, which I had started watching the night before. Not bad–fairly straightforward adaptation of the novel, for the most part. I was most impressed with Luke Goss as the creature–the design they used for his makeup is the closest thing I’ve seen on film to Shelley’s description from the book:
“His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!-Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath: his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriences only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips”
Not bad. Perhaps not enough of the yellowish transparency to the skin, and maybe erring a bit on the side of “slighty dinged-up Goth prettyboy”, but still pretty cool.