God, It's Been Awhile

I'm a terrible blogger. If I can, I'm going to do my best to get back into it.

So, let's talk about Summer Wars.


I've heard VERY good things about the director's previous work, The Girl Who Lept Through Time. And after reading a very positive review at Screened, I added Summer Wars to my Netflix queue.

Now, I'll accept some coincidence in my movies. But major coincidence tops my media pet peeve list. I give you ONE serendipitous moment, one so outrageous, so mind blowing as to be inconceivable. I'll give you that. I may roll my eyes and drop an Interest Level, but I'll let you have it. But two, so crazy as to be cosmically insane...fuck off, you don't get that.

And that's when I checked out of Summer Wars. When that second moment happend, and 30 minutes after I told my TV I'd turn it off if it happend, I was done. That's just bad story telling. In fact, you could almost have eliminated the character and been ok. There would've been some lost emotional heft, but I'm willing to sacrafice that in a world where the Internet is made of magic.

I was kinda digging the movie, too. It wasn't great and filled with the kind of Japanese bullshit that turned me off of anime and Japanese movies years ago, but there was some solid stuff there. Oh well. Conduct your plot in a better manner next time, movie, and I'll stay the whole way through.