Future Diary

I stumbled across this anime and was intrigued by the plot. A very brief description of it would be that it's a combination of Danganronpa and Death Note, with some time travel tossed in.

The main character is named Yuki, a very solitary boy who keeps an observational journal on his phone. He has no friends, by choice, and is in every way an observer of his own life, not actually taking part emotionally. His only 'friends' are imaginary beings, a god named Deus, and a little sprite my creature. One night while talking with his imaginary friends, Deus tells him that things are going to change, and the next day, he finds that his diary posts on his phone have already been written for the day, telling him what will happen. He happily takes advantage of his soothsaying device, until on day, a girl in his class approaches him, and reveals that her phone is also special, also able to predict the future. This freaks him out obviously, but it isn't until that night when he meets Deus, as well as several other faceless strangers, that he finds out what's going on. He, as well as several other people, have been granted devices that tell them the future, and they must use these devices to find and kill each other. When a person has been targeted by another diary user, their own diary will tell them that they have a 'dead end', and they must try to change their fate if they can.
The last person standing becomes god. And all diaries are different, and reflect the personality of the user. Yuki is an observer, so his diary predicts events that will happen around him, but there are other types of diaries too. Yuki then is faced with a battle royale to inherit the seat of god.

I had some annoyances while watching this. Yuki is a very timid boy, which is fine, but he doesn't show any significant growth until very late in the show. He's always whining and crying, and the other characters comment on this as well throughout the story. What was refreshing is that this personality is usually given to females in anime, but all of the females showed various levels of considerable strength, which was nice. Yuno's character, the girl who is apparently obsessed with Yuki, was also troubling at times, but her character became more of a mystery as the show went on, so I was more curious about what her story was than annoyed by her rabbid obsession.

This is definitely not a pg show. There is physical, sexual, and emotional violence, as well as some nudity. It is a pretty good show however. The plot becomes increasingly complex and surprising, and will leave you guessing to the very end, after the credits. It's only 26 episodes long, and that goes by pretty quickly. It's one of those shows that you'll want to marathon. And while you might be annoyed by some of the characters at various points, you won't be bored.

Danganronpa: The Animation (Trigger Happy Havoc)

This is a 13 episode anime that was originally a video game on PSP. It's a murder mystery story about a group of kids who are enrolled in this elite high school, based on a skill they specialize in, only to find that they may never be allowed to leave there for the rest of their lives. The school is abandoned except for the students, and this malicious talking bear. The bear tells them that the only way they'll be able to leave the school will be if they are the only person alive. If ever there is a death in the school, all of the students will meet as a council to try to figure out who the murderer is. If they guess correctly, the murderer will be killed. If they guess incorrectly, everyone except the murderer will be killed, and the murderer can walk free.

This was a surprisingly good show. When the rules of the school were being discussed at the beginning of the show, I initially thought that this plot sounded suspiciously similar to Battle Royale, but we quickly find out that there are some differences that make the two-story lines distinct. Another thing that made me kind of hesitant to get into this show were the character drawings. All of the characters are drawn in a way that is so stereotypically cliché that I almost didn't want to continue the series, thinking that the story would also be just as cliché. While the character artwork is definitely not my favourite, I was able to get past it by appreciating the actual plot.

The story was surprisingly intricate and well thought out. Murder mysteries can by kind of difficult to do, because it's a challenge to come up with a good plot that the audience won't be able to guess right away, but this show does it brilliantly. With each event that takes place, we are shown the evidence that the characters see as they inspect the crime scene, and then go with them to the trial and hear them deduce what they will. The first couple of murders are pretty straight forward, but as they go on, they become increasingly difficult to figure out. Also, as another person is murdered, a different section of the school is opened up, and typically the next murder will happen in the new wing of the school. All the while, the students are simultaneously trying to figure out how they will be able to escape this place and who is behind this torturous game.

It's a fast-paced story that keeps you guessing until the very end. They also play with a few different styles of animation, which keeps things fresh. I know it looks kind of cheesy, but give it a try. You will enjoy it.

You can watch the first episode here for the time being.

Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door (2007)

This is one of those traumatizing movies that you wish you had never seen because you can't get the images out of your head, but at the same time, couldn't tear your eyes away from the horror as it was happening. Warning, not for youth or the easily disturbed.

This majority of this film is told via a flashback of one summer a man named David had in his childhood. David lived in a normal, suburban neighbourhood in the 50's. He was an only child, but got along well with and spent a lot of time with the other boys in his neighbourhood, especially his next door neighbours, a group of boys living with their single mother, Ruth. David's life changed forever the summer that two girls moved into the house next door. Their parents were both killed in a car crash (the younger sister was crippled and required leg braces) and Ruth was their next of kin. The girl's name is Meg and David is taken with her from the moment he lays eyes on her.

David tries to get inconspicuously closer to Meg, but as he spends more time at his neighbour's house, he sees more and more tension between Meg and her Aunt Ruth. At first it's small things like making snide comments about her 'delicate womanhood' or implying that she's a slut. David can tell there is tension, but it just seems uncomfortably out of place, they're just words after all. Things change when one day David comes over and sees Meg's cousins tickling her and one of them touches her breast. The tickling was unwanted, but after the touch Meg shoved the boy to the floor, who then went to tell his mother. Here Ruth starts being physical, but not to Meg. She instead beats Meg's younger sister, who is crippled, as a punishment to Meg. Subtle but severe power struggles such as this continue between Ruth and Meg, Meg having no choice but to succumb to Ruth in order to save her sister. A few days later at an outing, Ruth's boys spot Meg speaking with a police officer who stops by the house to check up on the situation, and here is where it gets a bit uncomfortable. Ruth feels that for her own safety, she must now be much more severe with Meg, which means ordering that Meg be tied up in the basement, hanging from the ceiling. At first, she is just left there, not given enough food, bruises and rope-burns covering her body, but it of course escalates. David watches, horrified, while all of this is going on. He feels that he can't do anything to stop it, that no one would believe him if he were to tell, and yet he doesn't want to abandon Meg. At one point, when she's half destroyed, he sneaks down into the basement and releases her, but instead of running to her freedom, she is caught once again by trying to take her sister away with her. This is where the other half of her gets worked on. Will Meg ever escape? Will David be able to save her? Do you want to know badly enough to risk seeing these images that may never leave you... in the worst sense possible?

I have mixed feelings about this film. It was definitely well done, lets start with that. The acting, cinematography, storytelling; all good. The subject matter however, is really uncomfortable. Throughout the film, the neighbourhood boys are all portrayed as either having these mean tendencies, or not caring enough about another human being to go against the crowd. In fact, excluding David, the boys are all quite taken with the idea of having Meg tied up in the basement, and practically jump over each other to carry out their mother's twisted orders. The other kids from the neighbourhood are no better. There's one scene, the worst one, where a whole bunch of kids come and watch/ help carry out the atrocities done to Meg. Boys and girls come to watch. Ruth is also a really twisted person, which is revealed ever more so as the film progresses. We aren't given much of a back story on her, but it's almost as if she's dead inside and tries kill what light she can see in others. There is physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse in this film. Every so often, I look for psychologically disturbing films. It's something that just morbidly fascinates me, the idea of insanity, or the lengths someone will go to harm someone else, or the motivation behind such actions, or how someone could actually endure something like that. Well on that front this film delivers... too well.

The most disturbing thing about this film is that it's based on a true story. There was a real girl named Silvia Likens who endured some of the same atrocities as were displayed in the film, worse in fact. An American Crime, with Ellen Page, is another film dealing with this case and it retells the story in a way that is closer to the actual events. It is a little more tame in comparison with this, and maybe the go to film if you still want to hear the story without the potential psychological scarring.

If you're in that mood, I recommend this film, but if not... then you probably won't enjoy it, and that might be an understatement.

No Country For Old Men (2007)

When I first heard of this movie, and when I first began watching it, it seemed like it would be a long, boring movie about men walking around. Well it was long, but boring not so much. What I came to realize is that, from my perspective, this is like the new form of western.

It almost has the same elements as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but re-imagined. There is The Good, in the form of an aging sheriff, The Bad, in the form of a psychopathic serial killer, and The Ugly, represented by some ne'er-do-well scavenger just looking to cash in.

The Sheriff Ed Tom, begins this story by explaining the title of the film. He says that he wonders how the 'Old Timers' would have reacted to the things people do today. How even the bad things done back in the day were done with a stronger sense of right and wrong, that there were more principles, the some sheriffs didn't even carry guns (for my purposes, compare The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to this movie). And to compound this point, the good-hearted sheriff in this movie seems to be left in the dust by the bad and the ugly. He can't seem to keep up with or understand them, almost as if they were from different worlds.

The Ugly, Llewelyn, is a scavenger by nature. He wanders around the desert looking for anything that will help him survive. The inciting moment in this story is when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong, and he tracks down the money. He is then sends his wife off to her mother, to protect her, and then goes on the run from whoever will be chasing after him to get this money.

Little does Llewelyn know, what's chasing him is a psychopathic serial killer, who would play the role of The Bad in my comparison. This is a man of many morals, but none of them inspiring him to do good. He ruthlessly tracks down the money, killing a slew of people randomly along the way. He's oddly principled though. For example, several times throughout the film he puts a person's life in the hands of fate, and will make them call a coin. If they pick the right side, he lets them live, but if not... then no. There is no ill emotion in his actions however. He acts almost as though he's following some supernatural instruction, and is almost disconnected from what he's doing.

The movie is about one man running from another man, and a third man bringing up the rear trying to find one or both of the first two, and yet, none of these three characters ever actually come face to face with each other. It's kind of slow-paced and there is a lack of dialogue at times, but it is a thoughtful film. There is a battle of wits at play here. Llewelyn and the man hunting him are always trying to stay one step ahead of the other, trying to guess the other man's next move, for if (or when) they interact, it's a fight to the death. The sheriff bringing up the rear plays the role of bearing witness more than he interacts with these men on the intellectual battlefield, but at the beginning of the film, even he shows some powers of deduction as he surveys the deadly drug deal. His mentality is spent more in presenting to the audience the idea that times have changed. Even though it isn't the most action-packed movie ever made, it still is intense once you get into it. It's suspenseful and interesting, but more for the ideas it presents rather than for the 'action'. Maybe the reason this movie gets the 'slow' label is because people think that it will be an action movie, and are then disappointed by the lack of 'action'. If you get past that though, there's something here to be appreciated that is making an important statement. Pretty good.

Rashomon (1950)

This is a movie about a murder told from the perspectives of 4 different people set in ancient Japan. A man and a monk tell the story of a hearing to a stranger at a shrine while the three wait out a storm. During the trial, we hear the story from the perspective of a bandit, who supposedly is the murderer, a woman, who was the wife of the deceased and was raped by the bandit, and by the dead man, through a medium. Each version of the story is slightly different, but the fact that the man died, and his death in some way related to the woman's rape is present in each of the versions. At the end, one of our narrators (who is also the one who found the body) stated that he saw the whole thing and he tells us what actually happened.

The story is kind of slow-moving. There is a lot that could have been edited out and the acting was kind of overdone. The narrators were speaking of the story as a sort of lament for the state of humanity. They kept commenting on how this was such a horror story and how the state of humanity is in a really bad place if something like this could happen, and because they set it up that way, the actually story was kind of a let down. All of the characters were pathetic and I wish they'd all died... a suicide pact or something. Something to redeem their pathetic natures, but they were all simpering and childish in their own way. None of them present a proactive way to overcome their situation, they just whine and cry and it gets to be tiresome to watch after a while.

 

12 Angry Men (1957)

This is an amazing movie. One of those ones that are just on another level, and almost can't be compared with any seriousness to 'films' that come out today.

The plot follows twelve jury members as they decide the fate of a boy's life. The boy is 18, lived all of his life in a slum, is what looks to be Jewish or Italian (aka, black in the 50's), and is being accused of murdering his father. We only get a short glimpse of the boy before the jury is sent off into their room to make the decision of whether or not this boy will be sent to the chair.

As the jury members walk into the room, the audience can tell they're not taking this case seriously. They're talking about business, or sports, or how fortunate they are to have something as interesting as a murder case and how fast it'll be over. The boy is no good, and it's clear to everyone that he's guilty. Everyone except one man. The man who thinks he's not guilty, at first doesn't even say as much. He just wasn't completely positive that he was guilty, and more than anything wanted to respect the fact that a life was hanging in the balance by having a conversation about it. So begins a very long conversation wherein, either through discussing possible flaws in the evidence against the boy or through recognizing that the case wasn't as clear as it first seemed, the other members of the jury slowly began to question their initial judgements.

This movie is just a long conversation. There is only one room we see, with exceptions to very short scenes in the court room and the bathroom. There is also a fixed cast, we don't meet any new people, and the people we do know don't go anywhere. It may all sound quite dull on the surface... but I challenge you to not be riveted. The room is so emotionally charged, with real emotion too. The acting is really phenomenal, and I don't think it can be compared to present day acting that needs special lighting, special effects, special music to set the mood of a scene. I don't even remember if this film has a soundtrack... but knowing older film, there are probably more than a few scenes without a musical backdrop to tell the audience what they should be feeling. The actors just take you there.

The individual characters are all very interesting as well. Because it's just a movie about talking and because we stuck with the same people in the same place, you can really get a sense of where they're coming from and what makes them tick. How they interact with the case and the evidence, how they interact with the other jury members, the ideas they bring to the table. It all creates a small picture of what that character's life must have been like before they walked through that door, and why they're thinking what they are about the boy on trial, some positively and some negatively.

On a slightly tangential side note, they did an episode in honour of this movie in the cartoon Pepper Ann (I might be placing myself on the timeline here), except it is obviously not for murder.

Anyway, amazing film that you must definitely watch before you die. Yes there is a colour version done in the 90's. No it is not better. Watch this one.

 

I Bury The Living (1958)

This story is about a man named Bob Kraft who takes care of the business at a cemetery, the cemetery chairman. It's his job to manage the burial plots and to do all of the paperwork when someone dies. To keep track of all of the purchased graves, he keeps a big map of the cemetery in his office with little pins sticking out of all of the graves. The white pins represent purchased graves of living people, and black pins represent the graves of dead people.

The day after a young married couple comes into to buy a pair of graves for themselves, the die. When Bob goes to change their white pins to black ones, he finds that the pins are already black. He gets a sort of eerie feeling, like he marked them for death. To make sure it was just a coincidence, he switches a white pin for a black pin on the map. The next day the person whose pin he switched also died. He then starts getting worried and suspects that there's something suspicious about the map and tries to tell someone about it. Of course no one believes him. The police officer and reporter laugh off his worries and the former chairman, his uncle, just thinks he's been working too hard and asks him to switch more pins to make him see that he's imagining everything. Of course the following day, the people whose pins were switched die of unknown causes. Is Bob really responsible for these deaths? And if so is there anything he can do about it?

This film was really well done. The plot was decent and the acting was phenomenal. As it is with some of these older suspense/ thrillers, there is a wonderful sort of realization of horror undertaken by the characters that isn't so common in modern film. A slow dawning of the fact that there is something truly horrible happening, and there's nothing he or she can do about it. Worse, they might even be the cause. Even though the plot sounds kind of flimsy at the outset, they really do a great job at making it come to life.