Every time Mamoru Oshii makes a live-action movie, an angel dies

[Great Rumbler]

Just saw Assault Girls. Why, Mamoru Oshii, why?! :(

Links for the clueless:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamoru_Oshii

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_Girls

[Sacred Jellybean]

I don't trust Japanese film anymore. Not after seeing Noriko's Dinner Table and some weird flick called Infection. Then again, I did enjoy the two films I saw by Kurosawa, so maybe I should only say I don't trust modern Japanese film.

The only other one I can think of is the original version of Dark Water or whatever, the one where they made an Amerian Remake with Jennifer Connelly. I fell asleep on that one.

[Great Rumbler]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa still makes great movies. He's probably about the only Japanese filmmaker who does, not counting anime.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Really? Directly descended from Akira? (no anime jokes please)

I think I already mentioned it here but the last anime I watched was Death Note. It was good until the 8th or so episode. I don't generally trust anime either, though there's certain anime movies I want to see, such as Grave of the Fireflies.

[Great Rumbler]

Really? Directly descended from Akira? (no anime jokes please)

No, I'm pretty sure he's not related to Akira.

I don't generally trust anime either, though there's certain anime movies I want to see, such as Grave of the Fireflies.

With TV series, anime is very hit and miss [and mostly miss], but anime movies are generally much higher in quality. You've got directors like Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon [now deceased unfortunately], Makoto Shinkai, Isao Takahata [when he can be bothered to make a new movie], Katsuhiro Otomo, Kenji Kamiyama [although he's more of TV director], Hideko Anno, Akiyuki Shinbo [another TV director and also a bit hit and miss at times], and Ryutaro Nakamura [also a TV director, but a good one] who have done pretty good work in anime over the past 10-15 years.

[A Black Falcon]

I didn't like Death Note much at all, haven't watched it and don't want to. But yeah, in terms of average quality anime movies definitely are much more likely to be good. They're not that common really, but the quality level certainly is much higher.

As for Japanese live action movies, though... yeah, not often good, I agree. Once in a while, but from what I've seen of them, it's quite mixed. I'm not sure if I've seen any of Oshii's live action movies, though... but I guess I shouldn't want to.

[Great Rumbler]

Mamoru Oshii's three early live-action movies are very strange, lots of weird imagery and incredibly surreal. Interesting from that perspective, but low-budget and not particularly good movies.

Avalon was more interesting in its ideas and world, but never really gelled into the philosophical Matrix-without-the-action scifi movie it seemed it wanted to be. It was also far too slow and inscrutable.

Assault Girls is just...well...:

I love Mamoru Oshii. He's made some of my absolute all-time favorite movies. Having said that, he really, really sucks at live-action. It's not something that I can really understand properly, but that's the case. It's almost like animation Oshii and live-action Oshii are two different people. What makes his animated movies so great are completely absent from his live-action efforts. They invariably end up being clunky, inscrutable, visually bland, and dull, all opposites to how his animated movies are. I just don't get it. But Assault Girls...man, I just don't know what's going on here at all. It's really short [70 minutes] so you can't really expect a whole lot, and I didn't, but I was still shocked. There's no plot, the characters are as thin as they possibly can be, and, worst of all, there are only two short action scenes. You would think, going in, that this is probably just one long action scene, which would actually be decent, since the action isn't half-bad. But there's an intro that lasts nearly five minutes and a section in the middle with no dialog and no action [just the four characters wandering aimlessly] for nearly 25 minutes, more than a third of the total runtime!! Add in three Japanese actors speaking horrible-written dialog in English and Rinko Kikushi acting like a mentally-retarded mute and you've got a movie. I guess. It feels like a first-time director pulled out an old student film and padded it out a bit. Mamoru Oshii, why do you keep doing live-action?

[Sacred Jellybean]

That actually makes perfect sense (about movies vs. TV), GR. My main gripe was that the producers/writers seem to want to stretch out a series as much as possible, which takes its toll on the storylines. It's hard to make one long, continuous drama, I suppose, so you need to know when to quit. It's like the opposite of premature ejaculation.

English TV series producers have it right. I watched one season (or Series) of The IT Crowd, a British sitcom, and in those scant six episodes were pure hilarity. It looks like it's been on since 2006, and in 4 years, they've only made 24 episodes.

They've got the right idea, I don't understand how a person can burn themselves out on a television series of the same characters/setting and not get sick of it. Oh, hay, my episode of South Park just finished downloading. :FuckYou: Wish I could find some Seinfeld while I'm at it.

[Great Rumbler]

Japan has a pretty good idea on how to do series: 13 or 26 episodes for beginning, middle, and end. It's a good idea, but it often doesn't pan out quite so well with rushed endings, ending that are left too open, or endings that just don't go anywhere. It happens a lot, unfortunately, but I still like it far more than how American TV shows go on and on for six or seven seasons before everything is finally wrapped up. Or not.

I'm usually more forgiving with comedy shows though, or shows built around the premise of each episode being self-contained [murder mysteries, crime dramas, and so on].

[A Black Falcon]

Endings definitely are one of TV anime's greatest weaknesses, they're so often so bad, if there even is one at all... it's like all their focus goes into making the show, and then when it comes time to end it they choke and can't think of anything, or something, so they just do a reset or non-ending ending or something half of the time. It does get annoying sometimes.

I do like a longer series when I like the series, though. There are animes I wish went on longer, for sure. Going for three or five or seven or more seasons, like American shows often do? What's wrong with that, if it stays good? I know it leads to repetition, but still, if I like it, I often would like more. I like some things about the anime model, sure, but I definitely don't dislike the US one. As for British shows, I don't watch them much at all so I can't say much about that, but six episode seasons or something? Sounds way too short.

[Great Rumbler]

I liked Lost, I watched it from the first episode to the last, but in the later season it just drags on and on. Really saps my desire to watch more.

I just want a good, concise story.