One Outs

Animes focusing on sports seem to grab my attention, such as Hajime no Ippo and Ping Pong the Animation.

One Outs is no different. Of a similar caliber, this story focuses on Tokuchi Toua, some kind of anti hero which you personally don't like, but you cannot be helped but to get impressed by the levels of his deduction, skill and mind games.

It's about playing the sport of baseball, which is very famous in Japan, America and even over here in The Netherlands, as even I used to play it as a child in a lite version called softball. I'm actually impressed at the amount of details that are provided in the episodes when speaking of the technical terms.

The techniques, skills and tactics provided are backed up by the more clever characters by using math and observation in order to win the various matches. Although Tokuchi's specialty is playing the duel baseball version of One Out, where a batter and a pitcher play the ball only, the main story plot is facing off against other teams.

These others usually have 1 or 2 new challenges for Toua to overcome, such as a very agile runner, a smart coach, or a home run champion. Outsmarting each other is the reason I kept watching, as these battles are not only entertaining, but they fit the real rules of baseball too.

One Outs is the occassional anime which can still manage to interest me in this vast industry.

Rating: 7.0

Wish Upon

A girl finds a mysterious Ancient Chinese box that grants her 7 wishes, but blood must be paid each time. This means that someone she knows dies. 

Wish Upon is a terribly confusing horror movie, not because of the premise, but because of the editing errors, the inconsistencies, the non sensical chronology, the unrealistic dialogue, unbelievable characters and strange special effects. 

It can be quite laughable at times, especially when you and a group of friends are constantly pointing out the errors in each scene. Wish Upon is one of those so bad it’s good kind of films which takes itself too seriously.

Rating: 4.0

An Afternoon of Beat 'em Ups

Final Fight or Streets of Rage was all I knew during the 16-bit era, as was Double Dragon to a lesser extent.

I have skipped on so many beat 'em ups that I decided to revisit the now almost extinct video game genre, where the occasional modern entry like Castle Crashers keeps it on life support.

One version I always wanted to play after playing the SNES version for forever is Final Fight Arcade, the original 1989 release. Of course I emulated this via MAME, as I have (yet) to have my own arcade cabinet located at home.

The differences between both versions are in hindsight small, as a small industrial based level is missing, and the sprite amount is higher at the arcade original. Other than that, the gameplay is intact, but the audio is obviously older.

I've also played and beaten Undercover Cops, which is a Super Famicom port of another arcade game, with similar gameplay to FF or SoR, with up to 3 characters with different movesets available.

The artstyle by Irem is striking as it indeed reminds us of other games like Metal Slug or In the Hunt. The sprites are detailed, the audio and setting are a mix of futuristic 90's, and the characters have special moves with can tear up the whole screen.

Knights of the Round is another beat 'em up on the SNES with a medieval settings this time based on the famous King Arthur story, again with up to 3 characters playable at the same time. I found this game to be quite challenging for the time being, so I will have to play it more in order to give it a proper review.

Finally, I replayed Final Fight 3 on the SNES, which is arguably the best of the trilogy, as it has 4 playable characters, the best graphics, the most attack moves, and a CPU can fill in as the second player.

Playing all of these on a sunday afternoon has been quite nostalgic, charming and exciting!

The Disaster Artist

 

It has been 6 years since I reviewed The Room, and since it's 2003 release, few other movies ever come close to it's brilliant so bad it's good quality that is so rare to find. Most below average movies are just boring, but this one is a gem!

Now, strangely, a humorous adaptation has been released based on this infamous personal story created by Tommy Wiseau, and it basically is that, but it's also more than that, as the story is more about the fictional making of it, while the most famous scenes are almost acted identically.

James Franco plays Tommy Wiseau spot on, with his trademark being essentially the same. We see how the director, producer, writer and actor of The Room is behaving rather similar in real life and his main role in the movie, while everyone is dying to know the man's age and his birth place, because of his thick accent.

The Disaster Artist is a very funny movie that is fully appreciated if you watched The Room beforehand, although it would be interesting to see the remarks and reviews made if people watched them in reverse instead. it's also not a frame by frame, scene by scene adaptation, but rather a bit of "less is more" with background behind the scenes thrown in if you get my drift.

Rating: 7.5