I still haven’t watched “The Bourne Ultimatum” though I’ve seen the other two. I keep trying to find time to watch them all together since I barely remember the first two.

Glad to here you are getting into “Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino.” I did think that the second season was a little more accessible than the first though I actually think I liked the first season a little better. Might be because I marathoned it and sometimes if they change the nature of the show it just feels a little off when watched altogether.

Last night we had friends over for our new Sunday tradition, watching True Blood. We had to cancel last week's gathering, so we had two episodes to watch. The gore factor went way up, but not enough to keep us from enjoying our Girardelli's triple chocolate brownies with Edy's Butter Pecan ice cream. Although, now that I think of it, we'd probably do better to have raspberry sauce on our next dessert ...

Isn't raspberry sauce the stuff that comes out of your mouth when you say *thbbbbbbbbbbt* ?

Hey, man - say it, don't spray it.

Just watched the “Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone” Blu-ray. This has to be the best looking and sounding Anime I’ve seen that otherwise pretty much sucked.

The video quality of this remake is really great. Even in the basically grey city scape scenes the gradation in colours still makes everything look vivid. The blending of CGI and Cell animation are very good.

The audio quality is almost perfect. Dialogue, music and effects are all crystal clear. Both ambient and directional effects are done great. There is also a lot of bass from the explosions but none below 40Hz near as I could tell because my Butt kicker set to pick up everything below that didn’t move. I actually played something later to confirm that it was still working not that I really needed top since I would have still felt the low bass from the EP500 if it was there.

But then there is the story. I was never really endeared to “Neon Genesis Evangelion” despite it’s “groundbreaking” nature. Having not watched the earlier mecha anime there was nothing special about its version of fighting robots to me. I also though it was tad slow. So I had high hopes that this streamlined version would tighten thing up a bit. Boy was I wrong.

In condensing down 6 episodes into just over an hour and a half they managed to both eliminate much of the character interaction that was important in the original series and still manage to make things boring.

I’m not a big fan of mecha battles so even here they dragged on for to long despite looking impressive. At least there is only one long drawn out launch sequence, the first one, unlike the original series. One review I read complemented this on the tension level in the battles which I would agree with if I really cared whether the main character lived, however just like the original series he is whiny and unappealing IMO.

I can’t recommend Evangelion 1.11. I’d be hard pressed to recommend the original series either since IMO much better anime have been produced. Based on this first out of 4 installments I would say that if you really must see an incarnation of Evangelion then watch the original series to get the full story rather than the “Readers Digest” condensed version.

Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with that one. I never watched the original series, and my sister told me not to. She hated Shinji "crying while masturbating over comatose girls," to quote the Uncyclopedia entry.

Must have been a Japanese version since I don’t see how that wouldn’t have been edited out of a U.S. one. I got the original from a coworker who had it on old VCDs but my Oppo played them just fine. Hard to get into any series when you don’t like the main character.

Michael Cera and Rachel Maddow on Letterman is just about the perfect storm.

I'm still working on Gunslinger Girl: Il Teatrino, too. I really like the piano music throughout.

Watched Astro Boy, the recent big budget DVD, with Mrs. Medic8r and Medic8r Jr last night. I thought the violence was a little intense for a 5 year old, but the 5 year old didn't. I'd give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Ip Man

The video and audio could be better, and it's not the best movie ever made, but I enjoyed it. Donnie Yen always entertains me. I wouldn't even mind if his martial arts permanently scarred me. That would be a great present.

I learned a couple of things from the movie. First, don't ever call Ip Man's wife pretty, and second, beware Ip Man's super-long pole.