Blazing the trail

I'm a avid reader of Ain't It Cool News, not necessarily for the reviews but for the news and rumors they leak out. Today, Harry posted up a video that got my inner 10 year old screaming. A live action Space Battleship Yamato, better known in the U.S. as Starblazers. This show, along with Battle of the Planets, fueled the sci fi superhero nerd inside of me, and fed the ravenous Star Wars beast that couldn't get enough space opera on a regular basis.

They weren't my first exposure to Japanese animation, that would have been Speed Racer, but they were the ones that made me take notice. This was not my Saturday morning cartoons. The relatively adult themes, the episodic narrative, the somewhat graphic violence that resulted in occasional death were all unheard of in a cartoon then and while my underdeveloped brain didn't really understand the ramifications, it knew it was different and it liked it.

The shows only ran in tandem for about three years but they stuck with me and I've watched them in recent years and they don't really hold up but do at the same time. The cheese factor is, of course, increased but the drama and the wonder are still there underneath it all.

I'm hoping this live action version can hold it's own and be a fun adaptation of the source material.

Brain candy!

I'll be honest, I've been trying to write a post sort of dealing with a certain Dark Knight and my overall love/hate/love relationship with the comics. It's somewhat ponderous and difficult for me to focus my fanboyish affection into words and so I've been running silent here because of that and some other outside influences. So, sorry.

But this past weekend, I spent a lovely and glorious Father's Day with my family, eating great food, wallowing in treasures (both fun filled and practical) and watching movies that do not use the descriptions rom com or chick flick.

And as we watched these films that were all of my choosing, (except the first which was chosen for me by my lovely wife who knows me as well as anyone and chose J.J. Abrams wonderful reworking of Star Trek which was respectful of the source but managed to never enslave itself to the past and felt fresh and exciting) I realized how informed my viewing preferences are by my childhood. I'm the perfect movie goer for todays Hollywood!

In order, we watched the aforementioned Star Trek, the new A-Team film, Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible and the recent Wolfman remake and I loved every minute of it. These are not only the building blocks of my childhood entertainment rituals, they are the very foundation of my geekness. Not a day of my early adolescent life wasn't spent without an episode of Star Trek or M:I. I would scan the TV listings (all three channels) waiting for any of the old Universal Monsters to come on since, at the time, they were my favorite things next to Batman.

And I can appreciate at least a little of something in just about everything, even the worst remake. Fortunately, all of the above are good, enjoyable films. And I'm not one to say, "Hey! That's not right! That's not like that other one!" I understand there will be differences and changes, some will be interesting and others will be... interesting in other ways. Change doesn't scare me but familiarity adores me and familiarity is exactly where I found myself.

The A Team is everything an A Team movie should be which is precisely why I loved it. It never takes itself too seriously, there's plenty of over the top action and off the wall plots and it's all peppered (or should that be Peppard?) with nice little character moments. It feels like the A-Team you know and love only more grounded in todays climate. If you were a fan of the old series, there's no reason you shouldn't enjoy this reworking.

I've heard lots of mumbles and grumbles about the body count, but then I remember people complaining because no one ever died on the series, what are you gonna do? They do touch on the subject of not killing and I think it was a nice nod to the sensibilities of that era without turning this new one into a cartoon. My family enjoyed it, I enjoyed it and I look forward to watching it again. In fact I enjoyed it so much it made me want to watch the series so I've been instant streaming the first season from Netflix for the last few days.

I can't decide if all of this childhood intrusion on my days is a good thing or not, but it sure as heck is fun. And we all need a little of that, right?