Aeterna's Blog

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

So I finally got around to watching Scott Pilgrim, there had been quite a hype surrounding the movie that to me came out of nowhere. I had never heard of Scott Pilgrim before, but from what I had heard it was a lighthearted movie about a young guy who embraces his geekiness and had to fight some exes of a girl he wants to go out with. Apparently there’s whole series of comics and all kinds of other media, but I haven’t paid it any attention.

Going into the movie I was immediately into it as it was presenting the characters. Starting off with Scott, a skinny guy who’s down on his luck after getting dumped and is in a band, and his gay roommate who he shares a bed with. Then there’s Kim, an old ex of Scott who’s also the drummer for his band, Knives who’s a young highschool girl who gets kind of used by Scott as he’s trying to work through his feelings and they soon grow apart as Scott realizes she’s just not the one, which leads to some funny situations. Then finally there’s Ramona, the girl the movie’s essentially about. She’s this alternative looking girl with dyed hair(which looks great, btw) that just seems way out of Scott’s league.

Then honestly there’s not too much to say about the story itself, it all boils down to boy meets girl out of his league but tries anyway, hilarity ensues. What really is worth mentioning though is how the movie handles it’s transitions and characters moving, Scott is a dreamy guy and there’s a whole lot of transitions where you’re wondering what the hell is going to happen next or even wonder if he’s dreaming or not. It stays entertaining that way and the movie’s very self-aware as Scott will at times even straight up ask: “Am I dreaming?” while staring at someone.  It may sound pretty awkward but it’s really entertaining.

If you’re looking for a lighthearted action comedy and don’t mind a lot of cuts and being engorged in gaming and comicbook geekiness, I can definitely recommend Scott Pilgrim to you.

Scott - Ramona - Young Neill - Knives - Kim - Stephen

Eve No Jikan  - Time of EVE

I also watched another movie, though this one was not as well known or even shown in cinema’s outside of Japan. This movie is called Even No Jikan, which translated becomes Time of EVE. It is a story about a boy and his friend and their soceity wherein androids are rather common in the household. It plays with the question of how this would go and infact it starts off with some  ads on tv about people who are ‘addicted’ to androids and some anti-android campaign, which I would say you would also see in the real world.

It all starts when Rikuo, the main character is going through the logs of his housedroid, later called “Sammy” and discovers that she’d been to a strange place after returning home at a weird time. It wasn’t programmed so he got curious and after talking about it with his friend Masaki at school, they decide to go see where the ‘droid spent her time and what she could’ve been doing. Upon entering the place they find that it’s a small cafe which has some unique rules to it, which boil down to: Everyone inside has to be treated equally. What this means is that there is no distinction between human and android as they look entirely alike. For androids it means that they can act ‘normally’ and disable the “Circle” that normally has to float above their head to indicate that they are infact an android.

So the boys get very intrigued by the entire situation and they try to figure out who is human and who is android, meanwhile some small social things happen and they get to know the commoners one by one. That is essentially what the entire movie is about, the questions about what the androids are doing, how much they know and learn and think and if they’re fully sentient or not. Those are very interesting topics in my opinion and I can see this becoming a question that we’re eventually going to face as mankind.

The movie is actually a “Season 1″ of multiple as it also touches upon people who seem to be governing over the androids and monitoring them as they learn and interact. This project seems to be called Code:Life, which I think is a pretty deliberate and funny name. Nevertheless, if you’re up for some relaxed and entertaining fun and the subject interests you at all, you should give Eve No Jikan a watch.

The Cafe with some commoners