I'm writing some reviews for a site

[HungFist]

No not seem them yet, for many years they were hard to get hold of in subbed form and I never got round to purchasing the DVD boxset (obviously) but I do really look forward to them and have read all about them.

I've come to realize Ghost in the Shell and Innocence aren't Oshii's most famous films because they're philosophical and clever. They're popular cause they're Oshii's easiest and intellectually least challenging films...

Ironically the Ghost in the Shell manga is extremely complex on a techno-theological level! Oshii's film is still "philosophical and clever" but made shallower by its mainstream action film trappings, but it contains the hallmark Oshii themes of dissociative identity and ethereal reality.

I just finished my Finnish language Anno double review, which rivals your Alien reviews in length... anyhow, it's interesting to compare Anno and Oshii, both being anime gone live action directors, both having worked on scifi and mecha genres, and both having a lot to say beneath the core. But I see these two guys really as the opposites.

Oshii really is a the machine guy. His philosophy, even when about humans, is very machine-like. He's asking questions like why do we exist in this world, why do we act like we do? Very technical questions. Oshii's humans are almost like machines wondering who programmed them.

Anno is different, in a way, he really is that japanese school girl whose world is built around herself. His mind is 100% his own, he just can't quite understand why it's feeling what it's feeling. He's not sitting on the moon like Oshii, he's in a cave digged into his brain, and that cave is filled with psychedelic pop-music.

Not sure if that makes any sense, just a quick thought. Might bring it up when I review Talking Head (if it ever comes together) if I still feel it makes sense.

Oshii ------------------------------------------------------------ Anno

[Shingster]

You know those Alien reviews in total were over 30,000 words long! And that's not counting the film reviews, thank fuck we already had film reviews written in 2003 for the Quadrilogy release! Are these the longest film reviews youve written? My film reviews (the full size ones anyway) tend to be around 1000-1500 words long but I would like them to be shorter as I'm often guilty of waffling and lacking focus.

I know exactly what you mean regarding Anno and Oshii, it's getting on to almost a decade now since I last watched Shiki-Jitsu and Love & Pop but Oshii is very much a scientific existentialist and Anno is very much a contemporary Japanese auteur in that he uses film as a medium to express his own reactionary anxieties about the society bearing down on him. I think the important distinction between the two is that Oshii's characters seem to seek affirmation and definition whereas Anno's seem to seek assurance or control.

[HungFist]

That Anno double is about 1800 words, but Finnish grammar is actually bringing the word count down a bit. English has a ton of preposition, while Finnish intergrates them into the main word. Like
Car --> In a Car --> From a car
Auto --> Autossa --> Autosta

English verbs actually act in the same way as Finnish nouns, but have much less different forms (play, playing, played...). But Finnish... nouns, verbs, adjectives, what ever, they all have like 25 different forms...

But yeah, it's the longest review I've written. That tends to happen with my jp-pop-culture analyzes... it's no coincidence my longest reviews are this one, Maid for You, Love Exposure etc.

I'm quite happy with how the review turned out. I managed to talk more about enjo kousai than the film but still relate everything to the film and refer the film in every paragraph. And find a logical narrative for the entire review.

I'll post a dvd review and comparison in English at some point cause the second R2J is totally amazing in the extras department. Maybe translate the film review some day also if I find enough time and energy.

Normally I write notably shorter reviews, about 600-900 words. There's a lot of films that you don't have that much to say about but feel they deserve more attention cause no one else has reviewed them in Finnish or even in English. And I've really come to hate Midnight Eye. Those damn folks always review the same stuff, with more knowledge, with the same trivia, and worst of all, before me!!! :

I really had to stuggle to find my own approach to The Whispering of the Gods as they already used the "producer built a theater at Ueno for the film" story...