MEMORIES is an interesting anime movie with three episodes. The first episode is great, the second one is good, and the
last episode just sucks.
The first episode, Magnetic Rose, is the most fantastic part of the movie as a salvage spaceship (called the Cornoa) answers
a distress call to an asteriod made up of various ships in a very magnetic area of outer space. The salvage crew discover
the place is home to a recreation of an opera singer's memories. Will her memories let them leave?
The second episode, Stink Bomb, is the story of a young chemist (who has a cold) that takes an experimental pill (thinking
it's a cold capsule) that turns him into a biological weapon. The young chemist wakes up after a nap to find everyone dead
(or unconcious), and he is ordered to deliver the bottle of pills (and some classfied files) to Tokyo. The story is terrifying
and funny at times, and it goes to show that sometime people can create weapons that can be their own undoing.
The third episode, Cannon Fodder, disappoints me. The story just isn't compelling and many elements of the fantasy world
of a city that has one purpose of firing a cannon at an unknown enemy just isn't believable to me. I kept wondering where
did they get all the materials to keep making the cannon shells and why do they let some overrated high ranking guy fired
the big cannon every single day like some big ceremony.
The three stories have a common thread between the three. each story has someone doing something stupid, or something is
a threat that can leave people trapped to the very end no matter what they do.
The movie is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen. The transfer is very clean with good sound. The audio is in Japanese 5.1 dolby
digital with the option of having English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese subtitles. There is no English language track.
The extras on this DVD amount to a featurette called "MEMORIES OF MEMORIES, and trailers for eight other stuff on
DVD (or coming to DVD) plus an eight page booklet showing production art (that comes with the DVD). The trailers on the DVD
include Cowboy Bebop, Metropolis, Cyborg 009, Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within, Returner, Tokyo Godfathers, and Steamboy.
MEMORIES OF MEMORIES is a 30 minute featurette about how MEMORIES was made. The featurette is in Japanese with English
subtitles. The Japanese text featured (on screen) in MEMORIES ON MEMORIES is untranslated. You have interviews with the three
people who directed the episodes in MEMORIES. Katsuhiro Otomo tells how the movie came together, the choices he made in the
movie like using a different director to direct each episode and how they used some CG without making it look CG, and why
he used techno music for the end credits. Tensai Okamura tells how animating the episode Stink Bomb bbecame more difficult
as it went along as more things had to be animated as the story went on. Koji Morimoto, director of Magnetic Rose, reveals
that some of the story had to be rewritten to add something that was missing from it. Also included in the featurette are
pilot movies for the three episodes with some production art being shown in the trailer with the animation.
MEMORIES is an interesting movie. If you're an anime fan, you will want this DVD. If you want to see something interesting
and different, MEMORIES may be something to watch
this review is (c)3-5-2004 David Blackwell and this review can't be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to
lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com and look for additional content (and site updates) at http://www.livejournal.com/users/enterlinemedia
DVD Review: STAR WARS- EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENANCE
by David Blackwell
Review of disc one is coming soon.
On the second disc are many extras including some deleted scenes (mostly stuff during the Pod Race and before the Pod Race,
a waterfall scene on Naboo, and an air taxi scene that was put back in the movie for the DVD), a deleted scenes documentary
that explains why the deleted scenes were cut from the movie and various directors explaining why some scenes are cut from
movies, and a 67 minute documentary called THE BEGINNING that shows footage (from 600 hours that were shot) of the making
of the Episode 1 from pre-production to the movie's premiere.
Also on the second disc are some web documentaries that first appeared at starwars.com, trailers and TV spots of the movie,
a stills gallery that shows some behind the scenes shots during the productionn, poster art, and five short featurettes. The
web documentaries and featurettes do cover some of the same material, and even show some behind the scenes footage (that was
seen in other featurettes and documentaries). The web documentaries and featurettes are a fascinating look at behind the scenes
of Episode One from showing audition footage of kids (wanting to play Anakin) to training for light saber fighting.
If you didn't care much for Episode One, this DVD is worth it for the amount of extras on disc two that show insights on
how a movie is made and what was cut from the movie. However, I say every star Wars fan should own every episode of teh saga
on DVD. even though Episode One and Two are Out of Print at this moment (until Fall 2005 when Episode Three hits DVD), it
is worth it to track down Episode One (and Two) on DVD if you don't already own them (and since Episode Four, Five, and Six
are coming to DVD on September 21, 2004).
this review is (c)3-5-2004 David Blackwell and it can't be reprinted without permission. send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com and check for additional content (and site updates) at http://www.livejournal.com/users/enterlinemedia
