The wife and I went on a date last night. We don’t get a chance to do that often enough, but we try to set aside the occasional evening for some much-needed R&R. It’s a sanity thing. We started the date with big plans that involved dinner, the book store and a movie. Half way through dinner, however, our fatigue pimp-slapped our plans. The book store and movie idea quickly melted into a trip back home to sit down for some television.
Not just any television, but the news. We’re both news junkies, which is probably another testament to our advancing age. Those of you who already know that my “advancing age” amounts to a big, whopping 34 are already laughing. But you know as well as I do that you can get old as early as you please.
I guess it’s not so much that we’re old, but just tired most of the time. She chases kids around at school, I spend a majority of the day in a stressed-out frenzy, and then we have a 16-month old freight train that likes to run. A lot. Add a heaping dose of homework and house chores to that pot of stew and you have yourself a couple of worn-out people.
The thing is, we didn’t feel at all like we were settling or being defeated by taking our date back to the house. She and I both love our home, both cherish the quiet solitude of our own living room, and were both very pleased about the idea of not staying out late. She and I both have a bit of recluse in us as well, so a quiet living room generally sounds more appealing to us than a crowded theater or mall anyway. That sort of quiet evening is what makes us happy, so I guess it’s ok to act a little “old.”
The other night, I saw something awesome, and that something was Appleseed: Ex Machina. I loved the first one, and had been chomping at the bit to see this new addition to the anime universe. New is a relative term, of course. It was released in the United States in March of 2008, so it’s not that new. It was new to me, though, and I don’t know why I waited so long to watch it.
Guns rock. Period.
It’s almost odd that I liked this film as much as I did. It was directed by John Woo, and I have grown very tired of his style in live-action movies. That whole slo-mo fight sequence concept with people flipping through the air like acrobatic demi-gods who have been innoculated against gravity was awesome at one time. But that “one time” was quite some time ago.
Nonetheless, I seriously loved this movie. The story was pretty good, the art was absolutely amazing, and the fight scenes made me want to start collecting tactical weapons and sign up for a martial arts class. But since I would probably look a lot like Napoleon Dynamite working on his “sweet nunchuck skills”, I decided against the martial arts class. The tactical weapon arsenal is still under consideration, though.
As a general rule, I’m not what you would call a big fan of anime. The Japanese style of storytelling doesn’t usually jive with my brain, so I really have a hard time getting into it in most cases. Once in a while, however, something with a hybrid east/west style comes along – such as Appleseed – and I find myself in awe. There are probably more animated films out there that were cut from this same cloth, and I very much need to find them.
