This meeting was hosted by Paul and Jodi who cooked up a scrumptious feast. Mmmm, I still remember that slow cooked pulled pork…. We were joined by our youngest member of club moofie, who piped up with a comment or two to add to our ‘animated’ discussion. Sylvia whipped up a salted caramel cupcakes – more on that later. Here are the movies:
Jason Bourne
The much anticipated fifth film in the Bourne series directed by Paul Greengrass is our first film. Resurrected nine years after Matt Damon played the role in Bourne Ultimatum, this latest addition to the franchise was justified based on post Snowdon events.
However much loved the previous Bourne films by club moofie, the latest instalment was not well received. There were too many cliches, too many scenes copied from previous Bournes, nothing new, no character development – see quotes below. But hey, IMHO if you’re looking for a GDAF (good dumb action flick) popcorn flick where you can leave your brain at the door, this fits the bill.
Quotes
Paul: It did not meet my expectations. Compared with the previous movies, which were cool. I went with low expectations and was disappointed.
Sylvia: They could have done more with that they had
Andy: [on the USB stick labelled “Encrypted”] This is the dummest film I’ve watched in years.
Paul: It didn’t look legit.
Paul: It was a bit of a “best of” from previous films.
Beck: [on Tommy Lee Jones] He looked off par
Beck: There was not enough Bourne for me.
Ray: There were no surprises. It was just linear.
Beck: The previous Bournes were like being on a rollercoaster ride
Ray: ….but this was like being on a slow car
Beck: ….more like a monorail.
Paul: Jason Bourne has made me rethink my love for the series.
Scores
Paul 0
Beck 2
Sylvia 2
Andy 0
Ray 2
Wendy 3.5
Jodi abstain
CJ abstain
Renny abstain
Ghost in the Shell
As this movie was CJ’s choice, I think it’s apt to use his words to say why he chose this film.
I’ve watched Japanese anime for a long time. While I appreciate some of the nostalgic Ghibli studio stuff, that’s not what I think of when I think of anime. I think of futuristic dystopian urban cyberpunk worlds with kung-fu fighting robots and transforming fighter jets.
Most of the time the anime makers go for the cliches that they know an established anime watcher wants. It ends up being a quite insular genre and hard to get into. It also can end up being quite juvenile – ‘fan service’, unimaginative baddies, same-ish storylines. But occasionally you get one that actually tries to take the best of anime and ‘crossover’ to a wider audience.
While we’ve had anime before in Club Moofie, it’s always been the Ghibli stuff. I wanted to try out how a good example of THIS type of anime would go down with Club Moofie. It’s also good timing since the new feature film is coming out soon. Seeing the original gets the background watching done before going to see the new release.
If you’ve been trying to get into and understand anime but didn’t know where to start, then “Ghost in the Shell” is probably the best segue in.
By the time you’ve tried:
Ghost in the Shell,
Akira,
Neon Genesis Evangelion,
Appleseed
and you still don’t like it, then its best just to walk away from anime since it won’t get much better. It’s definitely not for everyone.
—-
If you didn’t quite follow the subplot it basically goes like this:
Section 6 illegally create an AI program called “Project 2501”. It is a sophisticated AI program intended for hacking and manipulating databases for political gain and intelligence gathering.
Its hacking actions start getting noticed by Section 9 and they think they’re on the trail of a master hacker. They call him “puppet master” but don’t realise what they’re dealing with.
All this “diving” into the worlds secret databases give 2501 huge access and understanding. The AI becomes sentient and like any “new organism” tries to break free. Section 6 try to ‘put the genie back in the bottle’ but it’s too smart for them and gets out.
While the puppet master can hack, it obviously struggles interfacing with the real world – while it successfully hacked into & took over a cybernetic body (a “Shell”) and got free, it didn’t know what to do and ended up getting hit by a truck and recaptured.
Hence when he makes contact with Major Kusanagi, they see an opportunity to ‘merge’ into a single super-entity, one with the hacking ability of puppet master, and the superior physical and real world smarts of Kusanagi. Combined they can roam the world (and Internet) at will and no one can stop them.
—-
On re-watching, I must admit that it is really hard to follow the story line. It’s only because I’ve seen this about 3 times that I know what happens in full. They deliberately drop names and terminology in your lap unexplained and expect the viewer to “catchup” on the plot in their own time. They deliberately make the plot labyrinthine & overly complex. That happens in sci-fi anime a lot for some reason.
I do like the concept about a new life form created within, and roaming wild “on the Internet” (don’t think about that too much though – sounds kind of stupid when you put it like that!). It’s a cut above the average anime.
There is still a “threshold potential” one has to overcome before getting into it however. It’s still an acquired taste and I forgive you if you didn’t like it!
Quotes
Sylvia: The boobs bothered me.
Beck: [On the new release] Scarlett Johansson will definitely get her boobs out.
Ray: [who ended up watching the football on his ipad] Can’t they sort out the lip sync? it was like a badly scripted Clint Eastwood movie.
Jodi: It reminded me of Bladerunner.
Paul: [who found it hard to understand the plot] I couldn’t get past the animation – that took me out of it.
Sylvia: I think the plot and themes were really interesting but the other things bothered me.
Ray: I thought the script was really corny.
Paul: Was it a translation issue?
Sylvia: Would you see another anime?
Jodi: For Clint, I’ll try another one.
Scores
CJ 4
Renny 3.5
Jodi 2
Paul 1
Andy 2
Beck 2.5
Sylvia 2 “it lost half point for the boobs”
Ray -2 [only watched the first 15 mins]
Wendy 4
Club Moofie 