I tried to watch Blade Runner. I made it all the way through, but was fidgety the whole time. That was one of the boringest, most over-rated movies I've ever seen. It was very long, and had absolutely no character development at all, and five minutes of storyline stretched for two hours. It looked cool, but that's not nearly enough. Aliens was fun, but it wasn't great; though Alien 3 had awesome music (I'm a fan of Elliot Goldenthal).

Speaking of Goldenthal, the best movie score in my opinion comes from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. That movie suffered a lot from poor script and lack of character development, but at least it had more character than Blade Runner and it had a very good storyline buried under the bad dialogue. Plus the animation is very good. Oh, yeah, and like I was saying the soundtrack is incredible, though they don't use it to its full potential in the movie until near the end.

I've never seen Donnie Darko.

No wonder you liked serenity.
Probably thought the matrix was a real deep and insightful movie too.

Too bad "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" was a huge box office bomb (Square Pictures lost over 120 million and bankrupted).
They should've released it for home video, like they did with FA: Advent Children.

"why doesnt anyone kill celebraties any more?"

The answer is, of course, that it's so much more entertaining watching them do it to themselves (or at the very least, their careers).

true...still, I dont think will Smith will OD on heroin. but I can pray.

Like I said, the good story of Final Fantasy is buried underneath dialogue that ranges from forgettable to awful. The first time I saw it was because a friend rented it and suggested I watch, and I mostly noticed the good animation and excellent music. I saw it again much later and noticed the story, and bought the DVD and I like it more each time I see it despite the dialogue and cardboard cutout characters. One of these days I will watch Advent Children; I've never played any of the games. But I seriously recommend the Spirits Within soundtrack. Even though it's Elliot Goldenthal rather than Nobuo Uematsu (who is also great but it made people mad he didn't do the movie), it fits the movie well and is brilliant and unique music in its own right. Very different from a John Williams or James Horner score, and much better.

The Matrix was fun, the sequels were disappointing. Serenity had better characters, and didn't have Keanu Reeves.

I just now thought of the South Park where the people make human sacrifices of celebrities by encouraging their self-destructive behavior. Funny stuff.

Oh, yeah, "real insightful" should be "really insightful." Thought I'd let you know.

If you're gonna watch Advent Children I recommend you at least read the FF7 story, or else you won't have the slightiest idea about what the hell is going on, seriously. It's like a continuation of the game. There's no plot nor character development since all that was already covered in the game, and the movie is more focused towards action rather than story.
Also, don't watch the English dubbed version...

The DVD for FFVII:AC has a recap of the story if you're too lazy to read it in text form or play through the entire game.

Good advice. My friends here recommended going to Wikipedia for the backstory, which was my plan, but if it comes with the DVD (more specifically if it is included in the rented DVD), I'll read that instead. And now I'll watch out of the English dubbed version. I assume the other version is in Japanese with English subtitles? I'm not intimidated by subtitles as a lot of people are, I'll try that version.

What I have is the "2-disc Special Edition", but any video rental outlet/service worth their salt will have that one available.

The featurette you'll want is called "Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII Story Digest," and it is on disc 1.

Almost nothing in Rexburg, Idaho is worth an ounce of salt. I'm not sure Blockbuster or Hollywood Video have it. Eventually I'll see it, though.

You ought to be able to find it here.

Haha, thanks, toshiro. I'll rent it first, then buy it if I really like it. I'm sure it'll be awhile before I finally see it, but when I do I'll let you guys know what I think. I'm sure you're just dying to know my opinion!

How are we supposed to hear your opinion if we're dead when you try to give it? :P

Actually PC, it's killing me to read your posts and not say something...

That's what I figured.

PC, I'm always keen to know others' opinions on anime or manga material, since other people's opinions can be used to widen my own horizon (not limited to anime or manga, obviously). So, yeah, tell me what you think :D

I don't like renting DVDs, though.

I must admit that Anime/Manga are not my thing at all. I do, however, have an open enough mind to give anything a try which is why I watched FF:TSW in the first place and will watch Advent Children.

At the moment my favorite movie is a tie between Children of Men, Fight Club and Serenity, though The Dark Knight may be moving in on that territory.

Since I've been making such a big deal about Elliot Goldenthal, I might as well recommend Michael Collins as another excellent movie. I watched this one partly because Irish independence was something I knew little about, and mostly because I had picked up the soundtrack because Goldenthal had done it, and it was very good. This soundtrack won a couple awards, so naturally it isn't his best one, but it's great, especially at the end when Sinéad O'Connor (of whom I am not generally a fan) sings the best rendition of She Moved Through the Fair I've ever heard. Oh, and the movie is amazing, too. Liam Neeson plays Michael Collins excellently, and Alan Rickman is always great and plays the president of Ireland. The others in the cast whose names I don't know are also very good, except Julia Roberts, who is the movie's only weakness; she can suck the personality out of any film just by being mentioned, but she's not given much chance this time, thankfully.

You can tell I just recently watched it again, reviewing it like that.... anyway, it's extremely good.

OK, toshiro, since you asked:

OK I grew up watching the original Starblazers, Battletech and G-Force/Battle of the Planets, but those were kinda crappy now that I look back at 'em.

The first "real" anime I ever saw was "Akira" at a comics convention in 1987. It was a rough cut, pre-release (in the US) version. I was hooked. Later on (like 10 or 15 years later) I bought the special supercool DVD edition of Akira in the metal case with all the neat extra stuffs when it came out.

I really like "Ghost in the Shell", "Cowboy Bebop", "Princess Mononoke" (movie), etc.

I like but am not wild about "Trigun", "Full Metal Alchemist", "Inuyasha" and "Bleach".

I definitely don't like "dragonall Z" or "Sailor Moon" or "YuGiOh" or any kind of pokemon crap. Although my 7-year old is starting to watch pokemon if she comes across it... I'd rather she watch "Hostel" than that crap.

I have not really watched Naruto, so I don't really know what I think about it.

Knowing this, toshiro, please give me a recomendation or two for some new anime viewing!

Um, Ryan... I think I may have read this wrong...

Did you REALLY put Wrath of Khan in a list of movies with "quality acting"?

Did you WATCH the movie?

I like Star Trek just as much as anyone else...but it takes a certain willingness to look past some questionable acting and just enjoy the fantasy.