Last night I watched Vexille, a hybrid CGI/animated Sci-fi action flick. It is extremely cool to look at with several spectacular action sequences and the story wasn't bad either. If you like movies like Appleseed then I'd give this one a strong recommendation.

Just started "By The Sword" and have a question about the Author's Note.

What is meant by "syncing the releases of The Touch, Reborn.....with Jack's timeline? I realize that "The Tomb" was revised to bring it more in line with the years of Jack's story. Is the same thing being done with the re-release of the other Adversary books or are they just being re-released to coincide with the Jack books?

Thanks
Steve

Wow, I'm surprised I didn't find a topic for this already. GREAT movie, unlike the typical formulaic comedy I was expecting. I don't remember any characters' names except Sarah Marshall, but it was good because almost all the characters seemed like characters rather than caricatures. The lead dude was deeply insecure and spent much of the first third of the movie crying (but there were some good jokes mixed in there too). He eventually gets over his ex for the very lovely Mila Kunis/hotel desk clerk after he pseudo-stalks Marshall's Hawaiian vacation. I don't want to go into too much, but it was great pacing, better than decent jokes and interesting characters. Only thing there was much too much penis (but even that was sort of funny).

Barry posted recently a review of Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train...

I was one of the lucky few that managed to find Midnight Meat Train in the theater (a cheap dollar theater halfway across town). I really enjoyed the movie and -- while breaking it open from a short story to an hour and a half long movie -- seemed fairly faithful to the original material (I'm a big-time Barker fan, from the mid-80's, when the Books of Blood originally came out; besides the frame story, this was the first story of his that I read).

Anyway, I did a double-take when I saw what you read -- it is currently up in FearNet OnDemand. I don't peruse the On Demand Fear Net offerings often as the movies tend to be sub-sub B movies (is there such a thing as a "C" horror movie?). Anyhoo, I look forward to checking this out again before it shows up on DVD. Thanks for the info!

On an unrelated FPW related topic, I do recall seeing On Demand the film version of Midnight Mass in which FPW himself has a cameo...the movie stank and (naturally) did not do the original source material justice. * sigh * ah well.

I just got this from Blockbuster last week. Great trip down memory lane- I hadn't seen this movie since high school. The funny thing is, I thought it was overly-silly way back then but I just realized they were poking fun at Fist of the North Star (probably other stuff too, I haven't finished the movie yet). The girl who looks like a guy B-Ko tells to rough up C-Ko is a doppleganger for Kenshiro. She's built like and has the =exact= same face save for the different hairstyle and she even does Ken's signature thousand-punch attack before A-Ko hands her her hat. It's always nice to go back and see stuff you missed the first, second or fiftieth time around. I watched this easily a dozen times in my younger years and never picked up on it.

I took the kiddos to see Beverly Hills Chihuahua last night and it is fairly entertaining if you like dogs. I was glad that were plenty of other dogs besides chihuahuas to watch. It was nowhere near as good as similar movies like Babe or Charlotte's Web but it is worth a look if you have little ones.

So far, RJ series' Japanese editions are published from Fusosha. But.....


I checked Fusosha's official site, and they says "Now, we have no schedule for new RJ series. As the series goes on, the sales fell off and they are unprofitable for us. It's too bad and sorry for that."


:eek6: :cryin: :mad2: :prrr:



I can read English edition, but my friends can't read in English! Oh, Paul! Please help Japanese Repairman Jack fan! :adore:

I see that Bloodline is now available in paperback. I saw it at King Soopers while shopping yesterday.

Leon is a photographer. His passion, his goal, is to capture the real, raw, ugly, beating heart of the city (originally New York, now Los Angeles) that he calls home. Meanwhile, there’s a killer roaming the subways late at night, committing unspeakable acts when the cars are nearly empty. Perhaps Leon can find what he’s looking for through the killer—if he can stay alive. All aboard…

First off, I want to make it clear that although this movie is on Comcast’s OnDemand channel FEARnet, it wasn’t given the shaft. It’s WIDESCREEN, for starters, which is something I’ve seen people worrying about on several message boards (and believe me, I was one of them.) And more importantly, this was intended to be in theaters; after the much-hated Catacombs (another straight-to-FEARnet feature), many were in doubt about the quality of this movie; however, I can honestly say that it would have been a hit if it had been in theaters as originally planned, but thanks to Lionsgate’s foolish decisions, it’s on TV already…and it’s good. (In fact, the only downsides to it being on FEARnet were the bottom-of-the-screen advertisements and the midway-point intermission, which will mercifully be absent when this eventually comes to DVD.)

As for the feature itself: well, it’d be impossible for me to talk about it without comparing it to its source, the awesome short story of the same name by Clive Barker (happy birthday to him today!), so for the sake of anyone who has read the story, I’ll quash your worries about a bad adaptation right now and say that this was nicely done. There were a number of additions to the plot (a typical stipulation of short story adaptations), but instead of being artificially grafted on, they nicely expanded it while retaining the overall plot and the mood of the story (dread, “ickiness,” very wrong moments of humor, and a kind of sublime—or perhaps subliminal—beauty in the midst of so much ugliness.) Sure, there were a few areas that could have been avoided (Leon’s girlfriend Maya was the only poorly-written character in the movie, in a very typically Hollywood suspense film way), but overall, the plot was tight, the characters colorful, and the mood solid. Good work, Jeff Buhler!

Oh, and for those who have read the story and are wondering/worried about it including its revelatory climax, [spoiler]yes, it’s here. It’s not quite as heart-stopping or surreal, but it’s there and it works.[/spoiler] To everyone else: I shall say no more.

Bradley Cooper plays the protagonist Leon. I was impressed with how solidly evil he could come across in The Wedding Crashers—yes, I’m serious here—and figured that he would do well in a more sympathetic role. Here, he took on the role of an “obsessed artist,” where his intense persona and hardened gaze was perfect. The other actors all did fine—Leslie Bibb as the airheaded Maya included—but of course, I have to give special mention to Vinnie Jones, the subway “Butcher” himself. What he brought to the role of Mahogany was more than just a looming, intimidating presence; he brought a kind of grace to the role. Perhaps this was just in the way he moved, but I think he conveyed a kind of silent dialogue (he literally doesn’t say a word—until a key scene at the film’s climax) that would surprise many who only see him as just another muscle-bound character actor/thug. Brooke Shields also had a brief but enjoyable role as an art critic, whose disparaging remarks about Leon’s photographs were a little cliché but delivered with a bit of humanistic sympathy. Everyone else did nicely, but to say more may give away the plot. Moving on…

To look at the film was a real treat. Leave it to a foreign director to bring out the best of a Clive Barker story; Ryuhei Kitamura’s uses of light (or lack thereof), color, and camera angles were only the frosting on this cake. You know how many times I’ve mentioned mood already—half of that owes to Kitamura’s vision. I won’t give away too much, but there are a number of scenes that could have been much more conventional, and yet with a few nifty shots and special effects…well, let’s just say that a few of the kill scenes were at least as amazing to watch as they were gruesomely fun.

Finally, I have to give huge kudos to Johannes Kobilke and Robb Williamson for their musical score. It contributed to the overall (yes, here’s that word again) mood, and was engaging, kinetic, paranoid, eerie, and full of ambient beauty. Luckily the soundtrack is available in both score and “various artist” formats, and if you’re like me, that’s a good thing.

Overall, I was thoroughly pleased with the result of all this waiting. Clive Barker was pissed that Lionsgate (and to name names, their head honcho Joe Drake) eliminated the wide release that this movie deserved, and rightfully so: it was good. Really good. But, now it’s out, and if you have FEARnet, you can see it. And if not, don’t worry—it’ll be on DVD soon enough. Fear not, naysayers; you’re in for a wild ride when you step aboard The Midnight Meat Train.

I'm wondering how closely the RJ novels with hew to the "real world" with respect to the upcoming election. Many polls seem to indcate a probable Obama victory in November (especially the projection at fivethirtyeight.com).

Assuming he does get elected, an Obama presidency would tend to herald a rise of American prestige abroad and a foreign policy based around unity between America's allies and strong diplomatic engagement with other nations as well as increased cooperation in attack global terror networks. Not to mention Obama's constant mantra of Hope. The overall result of all this would tend to be a reduction in fear, hatred and violence - and thus a poisoning of the feast that the Otherness planned to have on our world.

Therefore, one would expect that Rasalom and various agents of the Otherness would make moves designed to thwart a President who plans to spoil their "dinner." And one wonders if Jack might become involved in spoiling Rasalom's plans.

That said, a plot involving a possible Presidential assassination seems a little too involved and public for Jack, who prefers to shun officialdom like the plague. On the other hand, Obama himself began his political career as a local community organizer. Perhaps there's someone in Jack's New York like that...