Date: August 10, 2019 Time: 4:50pm Location: David Sooby’s home theater with 51-inch Samsung HDTV, a 5.1 Surround Sound Dolby Digital sound system, a full set of audiophile-grade speakers, and upgraded seating for about 15 people without crowding. Captain Laser: Ty G. Food: Japanese/Computer Snacks Costume: Computer Clothing
Short features will be shown before each feature. Don't miss them!
A student tries to fix a problem he accidentally caused in OZ, a digital world, while pretending to be the fiancé of his friend at her grandmother's 90th birthday. -IMDB
~~~~~ After the first feature, please join us for a potluck dinner. Bring something to share. It can follow the theme, or be something you prefer. ~~~~~
Feature Presentation! Ready Player One
(2018, 140 minutes) Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance
When the creator of a virtual reality called the OASIS dies, he makes a posthumous challenge to all OASIS users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune and control of his world. -IMDB
The home of the Laser Rangers is located about four miles north of the
Kansas Speedway, NW of the intersection of I-70 and I-435 on the Kansas side of the Greater Kansas City area.
IMAGE CREDITS: The information for all of these shows come from the invaluable IMDB. The movie posters come from Wikipedia or the movie's respected distributors.
The movie screen frame image used for the Laser Rangers contact information is courtesy of Psychology Today Online. Many thanks to these websites!
Date: July 13, 2019 Time: 4:15pm Location: David Sooby’s home theater with 51-inch Samsung HDTV, a 5.1 Surround Sound Dolby Digital sound system, a full set of audiophile-grade speakers, and upgraded seating for about 15 people without crowding. Captain Laser: TBA Food: Mech Costume: Mecha
Short features will be shown before each feature. Don't miss them!
Gunbuster
(2006, 95 minutes) Directed by: Hideaki Anno & Kazuya Tsurumaki
Noriko Takaya, a young pilot who lost her father to the planet's deadly conflict with the space monsters. Now she's determined to rise to the top of the Machine Weapon squadron, traveling through distant space for humanity's greatest battle. ~Cammila Collar, Rovi (via Rotten Tomatoes)
~~~~~ After the first feature, please join us for a potluck dinner. Bring something to share. It can follow the theme, or be something you prefer. ~~~~~
Feature Presentation! Pacific Rim: Uprising
(2018, 111 minutes) Directed by: Steven S. DeKnight
Starring: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Jing Tian, Cailee Spaeny, Rinko Kikuchi, Burn Gorman, Adria Arjona, Zhang Jin, Charlie Day
Jake Pentecost, son of Stacker Pentecost, reunites with Mako Mori to lead a new generation of Jaeger pilots, including rival Lambert and 15-year-old hacker Amara, against a new Kaiju threat.-IMDB
The home of the Laser Rangers is located about four miles north of the
Kansas Speedway, NW of the intersection of I-70 and I-435 on the Kansas side of the Greater Kansas City area.
IMAGE CREDITS: The information for all of these shows come from the invaluable IMDB. The movie posters come from Wikipedia or the movie's respected distributors.
The movie screen frame image used for the Laser Rangers contact information is courtesy of Psychology Today Online. Many thanks to these websites!
Date: May 11, 2019 Time: 4:15pm Location: David Sooby’s home theater with 51-inch Samsung HDTV, a 5.1 Surround Sound Dolby Digital sound system, a full set of audiophile-grade speakers, and upgraded seating for about 15 people without crowding. Captain Laser: TBA Food: Brain Food Costume:
Short features will be shown before each feature. Don't miss them!
When a machine that allows therapists to enter their patients' dreams is stolen, all Hell breaks loose. Only a young female therapist, Paprika, can stop it. -IMDB
~~~~~ After the first feature, please join us for a potluck dinner. Bring something to share. It can follow the theme, or be something you prefer. ~~~~~
Feature Presentation! Inception
(2010, 148 minutes) Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine
A thief who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of a C.E.O. -IMDB
The home of the Laser Rangers is located about four miles north of the
Kansas Speedway, NW of the intersection of I-70 and I-435 on the Kansas side of the Greater Kansas City area.
IMAGE CREDITS: The information for all of these shows come from the invaluable IMDB. The movie posters come from Wikipedia or the movie's respected distributors.
The movie screen frame image used for the Laser Rangers contact information is courtesy of Psychology Today Online. Many thanks to these websites!
By David Sooby Film review: The Wind Rises (2013;
original title "Kaze tachinu"); an Anime biopic with fantasy
elements. My rating: 3-1/2 stars out of 4 How does Hayao Miyazaki, creator of such Anime fantasy
masterpieces as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service, go
about creating an Anime biography of Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese aircraft
engineer who designed the Mitsubishi Zero, probably the best fighter
plane in the early part of WW II? He does it by including dreams and daydreams
showing the desires and inspirations of a young man working hard to become an
inventor and engineer; dreams of flight which fit very well into Miyazaki's
style of beautiful, richly detailed, fantastic visuals.
Dreams of flight in The Wind Rises
But counterpoint to the dream sequences, the setting
of this film is firmly grounded in historical reality. The auteur does not shy
away from showing the economic turmoil and social chaos in pre-WW II Japan. As
shown in the film, this was a period of rising militarism, when Japan spent
massive amounts of its limited wealth on building up its military, even while
Japanese citizens were being impoverished and displaced. As depicted in this film, aircraft designers like
Horikoshi wanted only to make wonderful flying machines, not weapons of
destruction. (This might be not far from the truth. According to Horikoshi's
Wikipedia entry, his diary showed he was "strongly opposed to what he
regarded as a futile war".) It is the supreme irony of the film that
these engineer-inventors were able to see their dreams realized -- produced and
actually flown -- only because aircraft development was funded by the military.
Miyazaki does not shy away from this irony, and in fact underscores it by
making the simultaneous rise of militarism in Germany and Italy part of the
story.
The engineer-inventors get to see their dreams become real--but only with military help.
A parallel story in the film is how Horikoshi met and
romanced the love of his life. This plot also seems, fatalistically (and
fatalism plays a very big part in Japanese storytelling), to be on a road to
inevitable tragedy, for soon after he starts courting her he learns that she
has tuberculosis.
The story is slow moving and filtered through a very romantic lens. Miyazaki has eschewed suspense and excitement in favor of, apparently, sticking close to actual historical events, despite the heavy dose of romanticism. Patience by the viewer will be richly rewarded in the many beautifully rendered scenes of Japanese landscape and architecture, as well as the sometimes literally fantastic flying sequences.
Japanese landscapes and a love story fill out the story, but slow the pace.
Counterpoint to the romance, Miyazaki injects some
elements of realism into the mix; Horikoshi's slide rule is depicted with
exacting detail in many scenes, as are the drawings and aircraft blueprints
produced by his aircraft company. The many hours Horikoshi spends on
calculations provides a counterpoint to the fantastic dreams-of-flying
sequences.
I'm a fan of animation, and I don't see Anime as a
separate genre, but rather as just one style of animation. This is by far one
of the most beautifully drawn animated films I've ever seen. I give it a small
down-check for occasionally wanting the story to move a bit faster, but overall
it's a wonderful film.
Fantastic flight sequences, as we soar with the inventor's imagination.
One mark of a great director is that, somewhere in the
film, he will insert a line which sums up his vision of the film. In Lawrence of Arabia, this comes at the half-way point, when a
motorcyclist shouts across the Suez Canal to Lawrence: "Who are you?"
The voice of the motorcyclist is the voice of director David Lean.
In "The Wind Rises", one of
Horikoshi's idols is the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni. In the
young engineer's dreams, Caproni becomes his mentor. In the final scene of the
film, the imagined Caproni says to Horikoshi: "Airplanes are beautiful
cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them up." I'm not sure
whether or not Miyazaki intended for that to sum up the entire film, but it
certainly does serve as an insight into the director's thinking.
IMAGES: Many thanks to Anime Monday, for the first and final still images in this post, to Madman, for the movie stills of the military planes and the couple in the woods, and to YouTube and Deadline Hollywood, for the official trailer. PLEASE NOTE: this review was originally posted on the Laser Rangers Facebook Page.
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