Tag Archives: Ghost in the Shell

TV Review – Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045: Season 1

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TL;DR – This is an ambitious return into the world of Ghost in the Shell that exceeds expectation in some areas but I am not sure the overarching story is going to work for everyone.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

There are a couple of shows that serve as a gateway into the world of anime. One of the greats is Ghost in the Shell a grand cyber-punk post-human jaunt into the future. For a lot of people, it was the movie that was their first contact, but for me, it was the Ghost in the Shell SAC. It was this, bright bold explosion, exploring religion, philosophy, what it meant to be alive. Since then I have wondered if anyone could capture that again, and the less said about that movie the better. Well, today we get a chance to see as we dive back into the world of Major Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka/Mary Elizabeth McGlynn).      

In the time since the show and movie, the world has become a very different place. The G4, that is America, China, Russia, and the European Union, moved the world into an economical system called Sustainable War, which sounds about as bad as it. This is escalated by the Global Simultaneous Default when all the world’s financial system collapsed at the same time. Since Section 9 had been disbanded, most of the team joined in on the sustainable war effort as a mercenary team called Ghost. They worked their way up from South America and at the start of the series they are travelling through the ruins of Palm Springs. They are there to stop a raid on the gated section of Los Angeles but there is more going on than they first thought. Now we will be looking at the series as a whole and as such there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.  

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TV Review – Doctor Who: Demons of the Punjab

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TL;DR – In the battle between love and hate, on which side would you be on? This is the question today’s episode asks before emotionally punching you in the gut.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

 

Doctor Who: Demons Of The Punjab. Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

When I heard Doctor Who was going to set an episode in colonial India, you can bet I was deeply concerned. A British TV Show doing an episode on the British occupation of another country, it is a recipe for disaster if handled wrongly, and the title Demons of the Punjab didn’t exactly fill me with confidence either. However, then we got to see Rosa (see review) earlier this season all about Rosa Parks and her struggles, they showed a real understanding of exploring deeply complex historical events, so I had a hope that they would be able to here as well, and I honestly think they pulled it off.

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Movie Review – Upgrade

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TL;DR – Bloody, gory, and brutal, yet also funny, insightful, and emotional. It blends an interesting concept, with great acting, and fantastic cinematography to create a really compelling work of cinema.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Upgrade banner

Review –

I walked into Upgrade not really knowing what to expect, I knew about some chip in some guys back and the death of his wife but nothing much else. What I was not expecting was to see a deeply emotional work of art, which does so much with its shoestring budget that I was shocked to see it only cost five million to make. It delves into the world of post-humanism that we are rapidly approaching as technology and biology blend together. But with all that at its heart is a story about a man losing everything he loves and trying to live in a world where nothing will bring the love of his life back.

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TV Review – Altered Carbon: Season One

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TL;DR – Imagine if Westworld and Blade Runner had a baby with Ghost in the Shell as the midwife.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Altered Carbon

Review –
What do we do as a society when the body is no longer the final resting place of the mind, or maybe even our souls? Well you get a world where you can wake up the dead and get them to tell you who killed them, where a child in a hit and run can get a second chance at life, where the rich can live forever jumping from one cloned body to the other, and where jail terms can last hundreds of years and you will wake up in a different body than the one you came in on. It is a world of great possibility but also a world of great sadness and inequality. So today we will be unpacking the first season of Altered Carbon an interesting show with highs and lows. However, quickly before we start, I have not read the books this show is based off, as such, I won’t be able to tell you how the show works as an adaptation on the source material. As well as this, because we are looking at the season as a whole, there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Movie Review – JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I (JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken Daiyamondo wa Kudakenai Dai-Isshō, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 ダイヤモンドは砕けない 第一章)

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TL;DR – This feels like a very respectful translation of the manga, but that also shows that what works on the page does not always work on the screen.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene near the start of the credits

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

Review –

Have you ever watched an adaption of something and gone “this looks like a faithful adaption but it just not for me”? Well, I had that experience this week with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. I should start by saying that I am coming to this film not having read the Manga or seen the Anime, so beyond the name recognition I had no idea what I was walking into. As such, this is a review coming from a first-time entrant into the world of Stands, and how well the film did bringing me into this universe. Manga and Anime are one of the areas that have yet to really find its feet when adapted to live action on the big screen, especially when it is Hollywood doing the adaptation, see Ghost in the Shell (see review), and the less said about Dragonball Evolution the better. Like video game adaptations it just feels like it is missing it moment genres like comic books have had. With that in mind, today we are going to take a look at what things translated well into film and what aspects really didn’t.

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Movie Review – Mute (Moon II)

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TL;DR – Compelling, brutal, it charts a world of extremes crashing together and the damage that it can do to people.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

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Review –

Because of who you are, you live almost apart from the world. However, one day you meet someone who completes you, helps you to live your life, it is pure joy. Then one day that gets taken away from you, what would you do? Where would you go? Is there any length that you would not go to get her back? These are just some of the questions that Mute askes among the tapestry of future Germany. Today we will be exploring this fascinating film from Duncan Jones, a gritty neo-noir film of mystery and deception, but also a film dealing with some very real and present issues in the world today.

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Awards – Key Moments in Cinema in 2017 Part 2

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TL;DR – This is the end of the year, so let’s take a look back at the year that was by examining twenty categories across cinema, ranging from exquisite to the obscured and all between

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Awards –

 

It is the end of the year (well a bit later than that but life happened) and while I will have the traditional Best of 2017 and Worst of 2017 lists, I have found that both of those lists miss some of the important facets that make films work, or not work. To eligible for these awards, they simply had to be a film I reviewed in 2017, and there may be some notable absences simply because we have not got those films here yet. So in Part 2 of 4, we look at five different categories that deal with the cinema of 2017.

  • The films that just didn’t quite work
  • The best line of dialogue in cinema
  • Movie trends that I am really sick of
  • The grossest moments I had to sit through
  • The films I will go to bat for

So let’s dive into TL;DR Movie Review’s Awards of 2017 Part 2

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Exploring the Past – Blade Runner (1982)

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TL;DR – The legacy of Blade Runner is not overstated, even if parts of the film have not aged well.

Blade Runner. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

I continue my look into the gems of films from the past that I missed the first time round by today looking at the most topical of films Blade Runner. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey (see review), Blade Runner is one of those films that came out before I was born, so I missed it the first time around, and due to its content it didn’t get a lot replay on TV as I was growing up. Now while I haven’t seen the film before today, I have read the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As well as this, Blade Runner has appeared in so many countdown and best of lists, and multiple parodies and had homages have been made of it over the years. So even though I have never see the film, I have seen so many separate bits that I have probably seen a decent chunk of the film over the years. So with all of this I was a bit apprehensive before sitting down and watching it, would it live up to the huge cultural impact it has had, well could anything really, let’s find out. Now before we go on just a moment of clarification, the version I saw was The Final Cut, which as far as I can tell is the cut that Ridley Scott prefers, so there is likely to be differences between this and the theatrical release.

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Movie Review – Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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TL;DR – This is a difficult film to review as it excels in so many different ways, the music, visuals, and it really nails the aesthetics, but something is missing and it just felt more ‘safe’ than anything else.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Ghost in the Shell. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

So it’s the future and the world has moved towards merging the biological and the machine with people adapting themselves with cybernetic implants. However, this is only augmentation, but now the supposed next step in human development is here, with a human brain inserted into a robot body, a ghost within the shell. Is this the next stage in human existence or simply a weapon being released into the world, a saviour or a curse? This is the set up for Ghost in the Shell a movie adaption of the original manga series of the same name. Well it has been a rocky launch for Ghost in the Shell, and we’ll get to that issue in a moment, but first I need to take a moment to explain my relationship with Ghost in the Shell before talking about its positives, and then we’ll get into what didn’t work.

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