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Reviews
Wanda to kyozô (2005)
The Medium Is What You Make It.
No longer are video games the time-killers numbing the minds of our world's adolescents. Shadow of the Colossus (the English-language release title; the translation of the Japanese would be roughly "Wander and the Colossi") has used beautiful imagery and innovative puzzles on the backs of giants to tell a story worthy of the religious mythologies of an ancient civilization. The technical game-play is stunning in its simplicity, and has truly moved video games to the status of an art form. Fumito Ueda's previous endeavor Ico (to which Shadow of the Colossus is a prequel) is also told in a way that does what was done with comic books in the 1980s; using an unappreciated, stigmatized medium to tell a story that, if told in a cinematic or literary form, would leave the viewing and reading populous speechless. To those of you who do play video games, you simply must play this game. To those of you who don't play video games or have teenage children who play them, buy them a copy and at least watch them play. Most of important to you all, open your minds or you'll most certainly miss out.
Hey, Happy! (2001)
A wonderfully messed-up little film.
One of the most surreal films I've seen in quite a long time. I'm a sucker for romance, so Sabu and Happy together made me squeal. Spanky was an amazing villain... He is the bitch I've always wanted to be. Happy was definitely my favorite, though. He reminded me of one of the boys from the indie surf group, Man or Astroman. Anyway, anyone with a personality should watch this. Anyone without a personality should watch it and gain one.
Space Cases (1996)
A cult classic...
Despite bad a few bad choices by the higher-ups at Nickelodeon, the show managed to do well the during couple years it aired, and still maintained a rather large fan following in the years after its cancellation.
Space Cases had diverse characters and an extensive background story. The show itself was co-written by a comic book writer, and it shows in the direction and set designs. If you could ignore the special effects and make up designs that occasionally borderlined into downright cheesiness (Catalina's rainbow wig being the most memorable) it had a cute, campy flavor to it that made it very enjoyable. It's a shame it was canceled so early on, there was a lot of questions left unanswered and development we never got to see.
Overall, I would group "Space Cases" in with other Nick cult-hits of the 1990s like "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" and "Are You Afraid Of the Dark?". You've got pop-culture in the Petes, the horror following for "Are You Afraid..." and we sci-fi geeks got this.