Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

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This is one of the best films in the 80's, a combination of live and animation, I remember seeing the trailer for the first time and marking my calendar to watch it.

Who framed Roger rabbit is off course about Roger rabbit, who got framed for killing Acme, who owns Toontown and Acme Corporation, Toontown is where all of the toons live.

Private detective Eddie Valiant was hired to investigate on the case. However Eddie does not like toons, as his brother was killed by one earlier in the story, but he is pressured to finish the investigation before midnight, or Toontown will be sold to Cloverleaf Industries. With Eddie's reserve, will they be able to find the culprit? And save Toontown?

Released on 1988 and distributed by Touchstone Pictures
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Won 3 Academy Awards and nominated in the Globe awards




Who Framed Roger Rabbit Soundtrack title list in iTunes store.
Lyrics for the song - Why Don't You Do It Right is available at Lyrics Mania
Wallpapers can be found at 1zoom.

There was a controversy on this film that there was some subliminal drawings, which you won't notice if you look closely.  Click on Snopes.com to view the controversy.

And would you believe it, that there is actually a dance step created because of this film.





This film has some interesting background pictures if you take the time to look closely, a lot of disney characters can be seen interacting as if it was a daily normal activity in their life. Kind of like a behind the scence look. Which added to the entertainment of the film.

I am really unsure if this will fall under the category of "anime" but decided to post it. As I am also fond of live and animation merging together in one film. Going back to purely anime on the next post.

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Blood: The Last Vampire

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A girl named Saya is commissioned by a secret group of the Government to go after creatures called chiropterans. In the film her assignment was to hunt down  the 2 chiropterans spotted near the military air base, since they were exactly spotted in the nearby school, she was to pose as a Japanese student in that school, and seek the chiropterans out and eliminate them.

Released on 2000 by Production I.G.
Directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo
Received numerous awards, like the Special Prize in the akasaki Film Festival







Blood Soundtrack titles is available at anime-drift.
Lyrics for the album can be found at LyricsZoo.
Wallpapers found at coolbuddy.


This anime is so popular that it has another film but this time around it was a live film, and was played by the beautiful Gianna Jun. I actually watched the live film before watching the anime, though both has a different twist in the story,  the anime film keeps you at the edge of your seat, like any other live film. And the scene's were drawn like it was real.

Below is the trailer for the live film:





Vampires are not part of the Japanese folklore, but I think this is due to the western influence. What I have found so far in my research, the nearest Japanese folklore for vampire is their "kappa", which is known to suck blood but from animals and not human beings. For further reading click on Kappa.

Below is a series I found for such creatures:

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Gundam Seed Destiny: Special Edition I (The Broken World)(機動戦士ガンダムSEED DESTINY スペシャルエディション)

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Gundam is very famous for it's series, and they have made a movie based on that series though there is a summary at the beginning of the movie as to the status of the story and it's characters, I would highly suggest to see the series first or read some facts on the Gundam series to fully enjoy the movie. Though the Special Edition is meant to cover the episodes of the series, it has some altered portions in it.

The movie starts off with the summary of the previous war between the ORB and PLANT, and that a treaty was already formed for a peaceful co-habitation. Unfortunately 3 Gundam suit, equip with the latest features was stolen from the PLANT base by the Blue Cosmos, considered as a group of terrorist. Which now started another chaos and unfortunately unknown to the two sides(ORB and PLANT), it seems that the terrorist plan was successfully executed. Now history is about to repeat itself due to this. Will they be able to save their treaty? Or will the all too familiar war totally broke loose this time around?

Released on 2006 by Sunrise Studio
Directed by Mitsuo Fukuda
The Gundam Seed series has won some award, but the film version did not.
However it is still popular among anime lovers.





Gundam Seed SE Soundtrack  can be viewed at wikipedia, kindly scroll to the appropriate section for Special Edition .

Result by Nami Tamaki  - lyrics and translation

Wallpapers available at tatto design.


Best quotes from this movie:
Something has taken root,and began to grow, whether it's good or bad I still dont know yet, but since time stops  for no one, I have no choice but to move forward.Because afterall that is the whole point of being alive.  - Athrun zala

The best intentions of a great man can often lead them to make great mistakes, in addition statement by such men can easily be taken out of context by certain people, listeners with an agenda can interpret these words to suit their own purpose.


....keep that in mind....
- Chairman Gilbert Dullindal

Even an event that occurs only once can be interpreted in many different ways, the problem isn't how you got there, but what happens after that, and eventually that will lead to something else altogether, a good tree cannot grow from a bad seed, yet when you look at people in general, they just don't think of themselves as being bad seeds.
-Athrun zala


Observation:
As usual I love their mobile suits, wonder when we can get to try out one of those. Below are some facts I have found so far:

1. The dialogues in this film hold some truth in it and is applicable to us in reality, what happens to the individuals in this film happened to someone also, how we react to it, how we handle the situation can either make things worse or better.

2.The Isuzu VX2 is actually inspired by one of the Gundam mobile suit.

3. Japanese is off course already trying to make make such a mobile unit, do please take time to read the Scientific America article on exoskeleton suits.

Latest news: Exoskeleton available for the disabled in London

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My Neighbor The Yamadas (ホーホケキョとなりの山田くん)

This anime is about the daily activity a family encounters, the relationships being formed and the realities that goes along with it. But it is presented in a funny way, that would made you watch it to the end. The anime is presented in a different way, the scenario in a scene is not that complete or detailed, it's like watching a draft drawing, it gives a feel of watching a painting in a gallery moving, it is quite pleasing to the eyes. And the funny dialogues will keep you interested in the movie.

Released on 1999 by Studio Ghibli
Directed by Isao Takahata
Got 1 award only, the Excellence Award for animation in the Japan Media Arts Festival 1999





Soundtrack listing is available at wikipedia.
Wallpapers can be found at animepaper.
There's a limited source in the net for this anime, will try to dig some more, and if I found some, will post it here.

Below are behind the scenes for the dub in english I found:





Though the story is more grounded in the Japanese family, but you will see situations they have are almost universal for all families, we do go through what the film shows, and it does makes me realize that though we are from different backgrounds, nationalities and such, there is always one common thing in all of us. The love of the family is very important in each one of us.

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A Bug's Life

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A story of an ant named Flick who believes that he can improve the life of his colony through his inventions yet this ideals was not shared by his fellow ants.  And consider him as a annoying part of the colony. Unfortunately this was not their only problem, it seems that they are being troubled by a group of grasshopper lead by Hopper, as every year they would visit the colony to demand huge amounts of food from them.

As they were gathering the foods for their offering to Hopper's group, Flick was showing off his latest invention, unfortunately as he was doing a demo, he accidentaly topples over the food that they stored for the grasshoppers, and all of it went to the bottom of the pond. Now the whole colony was mad at Flick, as there was not much time to gather the same amount of food. Flick suggested that they hire bigger bugs to fight off Hopper's group, though no one shared this idea, the Queen thought it was a good idea to send Flick to find these  bugs he thinks can save them, so they can gather the food in peace.

Finally arriving to a bug city, Flick met what he thought was the perfect group of bugs that would save his colony, unknown to him that they were actually circus performers. And the circus bugs thought he was a talent agent looking for some show. Will they be able to save the colony?

Release on 1998 by Pixar Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures
Directed by John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton
Won numerous awards




A Bug's Life soundtrack listing is available at CD Universe with sample music.
Lyrics for this soundtrack can be found at LyricsMania.
Listen to the music at Yea.FM.
Lots of wallpaper to choose from at WallpaperBase.

Observation:
The fist time I saw this, I was mesmerized by the detail and clarity that went into this film, it was impressive. And so I became a fan of Pixar studios, it was one of those times when you know that films coming out from this group will be something worth watching in the big screen.

Click here to go to the official site.

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Toy Story

It's a story about the cowboy toy, named Woody who was the most favorite of Andy Davis, and so he is considered as the leader of the toys that belongs to Andy. Until one day, Andy was given a space ranger toy named Buzz lightyear, and it seems the this new toy is now Andy's favorite. One problem however, Buzz thinks his real.

While preparing to go to a party, Andy wanted to bring Buzz, so Woody work up a plan to hide Buzz so Andy will take him, unfortunately Buzz was accidentally pushed out the window. And so Andy took Woody instead. Buzz seeing that he was left behind ran after them, and caught up with Woody at the gas station, when Buzz confronted Woody both toys started to fight, and they got left behind by Andy's car. Now they need each other to get to get back to Andy, Woody took it as a chance to fool Buzz and so told him that they must get to where Andy was going so he can go home to his planet, which made Buzz eager to go. With each other's help they manage to arrive to the place were Andy was going, Buzz seeing a lot of space decorations thought one of the games was his spaceship. And wanted to board it, Woody tried to stop him, but they were taken by Sid, Andy's neighbor, who was known for taking toys apart and making them into something else. Will the two ever make it back to Andy safely? Or be disassembled forever?

Released on 1995 by Pixar Studios
Directed by John Lasseter
Won numerous awards






Toy Story soundtrack can be viewed at wikipedia.
Lyrics can be found here.




Lyrics | Newman, Randy - You’ve Got a Friend in Me lyrics


This is the first release of Pixar before it was bought by Disney, and the first computer animated film. This film did well and as well as it's merchandise, because of this film, everyone was interested in the technology used for this animation, not only the film industry, but in the gaming world, IT world, hardware makers and so on. It's influence was vast. This is Mr. Job's second company he made aside from Next, after he was voted out of Apple a few years back, and ironically this made him more famous than when he was in Apple.

Unfortunately Mr. Steve Jobs passed away last Oct 5, 2011 and the world morn the passing of this brilliant man. Below is one of his powerful speech. Do please take the time to view it.



Goodbye Steve Jobs, you will surely be missed.
"To Infinity and Beyond" - Buzz lightyear

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Akira (アキラ)

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The story begins with what seems like a nuclear blast in Tokyo, after a number of years later a Neo Tokyo arises but peace and order was barely maintained. Then the following events took place at the same time:

1. a group of gangsters running the roads to fight off each other
2. a specimen from the military is being chased along the streets
3. demonstrations was breaking out in the streets

The three events finally met up, when the the specimen arrive at the scene of the demonstration and releasing it's power, scattered the people to avoid the falling debris from the mirrors on the buildings. Also so not to be caught by the military. This created the needed diversion to again ran away. Meanwhile the group of gangsters running around the city, was still trying to kill each other off, one of the bikers named Tetsuo almost ran over the specimen who's name is Takashi. And it seems the encounter jagged Tetsuo's psychic powers. So he was also taken by the military much to the objections of his friends especially Kaneda, his childhood buddy.

What exactly are the military doing to this speciments? And what will happen to Tetsuo?

Released on 1988 by TMS Entertaintment and distributed by Toho
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo
Came out in the Times Magazine in the list of Top 5 Anime




Akira Soundtrack title list is available at wikipedia.org
To listen to some samples of the soundtrack, click here.
Lyrics can be found at Nomorelyrics.

There's an unofficial website dedicated to the film and the manga, at akira2019.com

Observation:
Though the story is quite interesting about psychic abilities and friendship, but the psychic patterns was not explained much. Maybe the manga is much better? I am unsure as I haven't read the manga yet.

As usual psychic abilities are tied with military experimentation to harness it's possible powers. It seems to be a common plot for me. The only thing that kept me watching about it was my curiosity for "Akira".

I wonder does human beings really have the capability of such skills?

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