You really have to feel bad for Hellboy II, being released around the same time as The Dark Knight, especially when the former is actually quite good. Despite being a fan of the first movie I was a bit skeptical when I heard about the sequel, but all of my skepticism was tossed out the window when I finally saw the trailer. Based on how it looked, I imagined it’d be worlds better than its predecessor. And I was right.

Hellboy II picks up where the first film leaves off, with the familiar cast of characters (and some new additions such as the Seth MacFarlane voiced Johann Krauss). This time around though the film delves more into folklore and mythology, blending Guillermo del Toro’s penchant for ingeniously crafted creature effects with dizzying action sequences that make the ones in the first Hellboy look amateurish. And (when the film comes out on DVD) you can play a fun drinking game by taking a shot everytime the editor uses an invisible cut. I guarantee you’ll be wasted before the first half hour’s gone by.

Everything about Hellboy II is just so much more epic. Dozens of characters and creatures, incredible action and effects, a unique story entrenched in folklore … wait, I’m repeating myself here. Still, that’s really what strikes me most about this film though. It feels like a mix of Pan’s Labyrinth and MirrorMask (a great film written by Neil Gaiman) with a splash of the original Hellboy for taste and color. What comes out is a delicious blend of superhero goodness and fantastical surrealism at its best.

Even if you weren’t a fan of the first Hellboy, or are skeptical about the whole franchise, give Hellboy II a shot. It’ll be well worth it.

Quite a surprise for me. When it comes to Murakami I tend to like his surreal, absurdist stories in which odd things happen for no apparent reason, no explanations necessary. Oddly enough, South of the Border, West of the Sun is probably the most down-to-earth, realist novel in his bibliography next to Norwegian Wood. And I absolutely adored it.

Given that I’m in my early 20s and always freaking out about growing older, South of the Border really spoke to me about the pains and confusions of growing up; cultural differences aside, I could really relate to a lot of the things the protagonist Hajime was talking about during the early, drawn-out personal history that makes up the first third of the novel or so. Unlike what the last reviewer wrote, I think it’s all necessary, all relative to the story, just as a person’s past shapes who they are in the present.

There’s a lot that seems to be left out of the big picture when I think about it, certain details about characters that may be lacking or neglected, but in a way it shows you where Hajime’s focus really lies. And I have no problem with that. Unlike After Dark, there aren’t any lingering questions, any nagging thoughts I have now that the story’s come to an end. Everything feels like it fits in a neat little package.

And at a rather short 211 pages (in trade paperback), with huge margins, neat little package is an appropriate term. I’m not one to plow through books – which you can tell if you look at my consumption rate of books – but I managed to finish South of the Border in a single afternoon. It’s incredibly light reading with a heavily emotional story.

One of my new favorite books, and definitely, in my opinion, one of Haruki Murakami’s best.

David Carter’s little book on Asian cinema is actually a handy reference guide that glosses over a fair amount of history while providing readers with what is essentially a huge checklist of important directors and films across the major Asian markets of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and North and South Korea. The Korean sections in general are lengthy and detailed, taking up a good half of the book.

Unfortunately, I found that the Chinese sections alone are missing a number of important contemporary films and directors. Most of the ones given in the book are major ones taken from other books like Jeff Yang’s Once Upon a Time in China. The Japanese section is the same. I’m guessing, given that Carter teaches in Seoul and the book’s emphasis on Korean cinema, spent more time focusing on what he knew rather than seeking to construct a complete guide to Asian cinema.

Don’t let that deter you though, especially if you’re into Asian cinema. The checklist, while lacking, is still a great place to start if you need to know important names and films. Just don’t expect to find too much information on them in Carter’s book.

I was really on the fence about this one. As much as I love Stephen Chow, From Beijing With Love was one of his worst films. It does poke fun at the James Bond series, which is easy to do if you think about how silly some of the conventions seem in those films, but Beijing really fails to do much else. If you’re already familiar with Chow and his style of comedy then you already know what to expect anyway.

There are some genuinely funny moments in Beijing here and there, but for the most part it’s pretty cut-and-dry. You can skip over this in favor of some other Chow parodies that function much better.

On one hand 300 is a movie worth seeing, if anything because – at least in my case – your guy friends will stop asking you if you’ve seen it yet. Haha, well, it’s also nice to see some extensive use of CGI that actually looks good as opposed to looking like The Matrix Reloaded.

On the other hand, there’s nothing really special about 300 other than that. Essentially it’s an entertaining ‘popcorn’ flick about a bunch of buff guys in their underwear yelling and fighting. There’s something else about corruption and such, but it’s easily forgotten amongst what is essentially the longest battle scene ever. It’s hard to find anything really deep in 300, other than some kind of wacked out sense of patriotism and some homoerotic undertones (funny how frat boys seem to love this movie in that case).

Still, if you like blood, brawny men duking it out, nipples, and way too much slow-motion, by all means go watch 300.

Don’t listen to the older comments; Out is an extremely engaging, dark novel that stands up there with the best crime novels.

Unlike most other crime genre novels, Out does away with a singular, straight-arrow protagonist that seems to know everything with a larger cast of characters, each of whom has their own share of issues. By shifting the focus every few pages, the flow of the story is kept strong, constantly changing and evolving as the plot thickens. At first this may seem a bit redundant, with the characters tending to fret about their everyday lives, but this style soon begins to make the drama all the richer.

Personally, I found the characters well-developed to a point where even the worst characters – the kind you’d want to punch in the face if they really existed – felt human and worthy of sympathy. They each have their own story to tell, and for the most part Kirino gives each of them their due. And although I haven’t read her other novels, Kirino seems to be making some sort of comment on the state of women in contemporary Japan. I may be wrong with this suggestion though, but it seems like it’d fit.

I guess if I had to point out a negative about the book it would be that at some points it felt like it dragged on a bit too long. I’m not usually one to complain about the length of books, but Out probably didn’t need to be as long as it is. Because of the shift in focus there’s a bit of repetition, but that’s off-set by the fact that you get different perspectives.

Overall though, Out is a great, thrilling read. Kirino’s style, to me, is like a combination of Haruki Murakami and Raymond Chandler. It’s moody, dark, hauntingly violent, and will keep you turning pages.

It’s been awhile since I’ve really been impressed with a movie, let alone a superhero film; last year’s Spider-Man 3 really let me down in a lot of ways. And given that I was never really into Batman as a kid, I feel like it’s even more impressive that I’ve actually started to delve more into the mythos behind the caped crusader.

Anyway, until I actually saw The Dark Knight I too was worried that it would turn out to be all hype with little delivery, but I was wrong. Heath Ledger really is that good as the Joker, albeit this is an entirely different take on the character from Jack Nicholson’s version in the 1989 Batman. Ledger’s is more like some maniacal psychopath with a taste for chaos than some petty criminal with clown make-up. Hell, the film itself is as dark as they come, blurring the lines between what’s good and evil.

The returning actors all play their parts well; I personally liked Gary Oldman more than I did in Batman Begins. The new additions to the cast are also good. Aaron Eckhart’s version of Harvey Dent is terrific, and I’m glad they made the decision to cast him. He’s just got that lawyer/businessman kind of vibe that fits with a character like Dent. And yes, Maggie Gyllenhaal is much better than Katie Holmes. It was far easier to take her seriously than Holmes.

The action and narrative come at a good pace, but there’s a lot of information to digest, which can get confusing if you’re not really paying attention. And judging by some reviews, people seem to think two and a half hours is too much time to devote their attention to – ah, the beauties of contemporary American audiences and the YouTube generation! I personally like longer, more engaging films, and personally the two and a half hours is time well-spent.

The Dark Knight is an impressive film to be sure, but I’m a bit worried about where Christopher Nolan is going to take the series from here, if he decides to continue it – and with an opening weekend record breaker, why wouldn’t the studios try to push a sequel? Still, it’s always a fun conversation to imagine what other Batman villian is next in line to be given the Nolan treatment.

I’m a bit conflicted about this little film that seemingly came from nowhere. While an interesting new piece of cinema from Taiwan, it has all the depth and emotion of many Taiwanese New Cinema films (i.e. Tsai Ming-Liang, Hou Hsiao-Hsien), a lot of the message seems to be distorted. Sure, there’s some connection between gods, men (humans), and dogs, but the film never explicitly comes out and says it, instead allowing the viewer to make up their own mind about it.

God Man Dog focuses on a select group of characters, all of whom have their own personal conflicts and real-world problems and are drawn together in some mysterious circumstance or another. The narrative is very much strung along by these random occurrences, presumably under some notion of fate, but by the end it still seems way too convenient to fit.

I really wanted to like this film a lot, and to some degree I do, but it could have been better. As I said, it ends way too conveniently, without explaining very much or even justifying anything. But, I guess to each their own.

What can I say about Evangelion that hasn’t already been said? It’s visually stunning for its time, has one of the most original and best character-driven narratives of any animated series, and it remains at the forefront of Japanese anime, as a testament to the medium.

This boxset in particular is amazing, thanks to the crystal clear restoration work and remastered audio that was sorely lacking in the original DVDs. While some of the subtitles have been altered (apparently they’re more literal), everything about the set seems like an improvement over the dated feel of the original set.

There isn’t much in the way of extras with the exception of a sixth disc that comes with director’s cut episodes of 21-24, but I don’t really mind since I hear most of the extras from the single DVDs mainly consisted of lame ADV-related stuff, and no real commentary or features from Gainax. The low cost of the set is more than enough to make up for the lack of extra features anyway.

This is a bargain for both fans of Eva and those who’ve been waiting for a definitive collection of the series to get on DVD.

For sure, thewilyfilipino’s review of Drunken Angel says it best. The film’s big highlight is the great chemistry between Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura. Another added bonus is when you consider this was the first film in which Mifune and Kurosawa worked together, and it’s interesting to trace the evolution of his persona across the many films that come after Drunken Angel.

With a ton of darkness and grit, Drunken Angel is a pleasant precursor to Kurosawa’s other noir films, notably Stray Dog. Despite being an early film in Kurosawa’s career, it has much of the same depth and feeling that his later films encompass. At the same time, it feels like Kurosawa-lite for some reason, though this doesn’t detract much from the experience itself. It’s nowhere near as epic as a film like Ran, but it’s still Kurosawa.

Great, great stuff.