ASYLUM

* Beat

So, I've been offline recently — a combination of my ISP being grossly incompetent, and my schedule leaving me mostly either out, or asleep.

(This next chunk largely cannibalised from an email to a friend...)

Last week, I saw Ghost in the Shell 2. It's been out for about 18 months in Japan, and over a year in the USA — yet it still hasn't been released over here. Why? I do not understand. But, there was a special showing at the NFT, arranged by Resfest, a bunch of crazy video/film geeks who bill themselves as a 'travelling film festival'. They do showings, talks, workshops on film editing, all sorts.

Well, we only went because we wanted to see the film. Didn't know about Resfest at the time, or that there was anything else to it, and didn't even pre-book, just turned up on the night. We were lucky to get tickets — there were about 6 left when we got there. As it turns out there was all sorts of madness going on. I think Manga Video were footing the bill. A sodding great big original canvas of a 'Hadaly' droid was given away to a random audience member. We all got free gift bags on the way out with DVDs and stuff — I got a box set of one of the series' of Stand Alone Complex.

Then there was a free after-party on the HMS President, moored off Victoria Embankment. We even got free drinks; not sure why, it was a for-pay bar, but a mixture of bedraggledness (me — it was pissing down with rain, making the ship look like the opening of Metal Gear Solid 2), and pluckiness and charm (her, obviously) got us 6 free drink tokens thru the course of the evening. People kept coming up and giving them to us. No reason.

And there was a crazy japanese Human Beatbox going by the name of AFRA ("Always Fresh Rhythm Attack!") who was, frankly, fantastic in the way only goofy lil guys with mad skillz, self-deprecation and a fucking great big sound system can be. If you know the track on Propellerheads' Decks Drums & Rock n Roll that opens "Let's hear now an example of correct microphone placing...", then it was like that, but better, with the guy doing all the parts. Even the bass, the backing vocals, and scratching 'the record' back and forth and at different speeds, all using only himself and a microphone.

Later, he did add a sampler, but only to get polyphony — blasting a track into the mic with an instant-capture-replay-loop mode that kept it going while he moved onto the next one. Also getting the audience to join in by copying his moves, which was rather like playing Space Channel 5. There were only maybe 50-100 of us clustered around the stage area at one end of the boat's ballroom, and everyone was into it.

By the end of it all, I'm pretty sure we'd got more than our ticket's worth. In fact, counting DVDs, spirits, etc I think they paid us to watch the film. They didn't even need to. It was cool.

The CG was a little "in your face" in places — especially odd little details that jump out at you, like maybe the work-experience kid did those. People are hand-drawn through 95% of it whereas backgrounds are CG about 60-70% of it, I'd estimate. A little odd. And a little too much random-quoting-of-classics. And, to give credit where due, a very strong Blade Runner influence.

But where else are you going to get your dose of true cyberpunk? CP memes crop up in Hollywood quite a bit these days but they're always so clunky, like they can't do it without stopping to signpost every little detail for the slackjaws in the audience, that feeling like the actors are holding the words in tongs at at arms length, and besides they're only using it as a stylistic veneer over a standard 2×4 plyboard of Generic Action Movie.

This has the genuine style (about 30% Rez, 30% Blade Runner, 30% Jonathan Ive and the remaining 10% Crazy) and depth of classic 80s mirrorshade cyberpunk.

Here's your token bizarre link of the day, although I guess by now it's been picked up everywhere:

Dolphin Ninja Assassin

Sounds like a saturday-afternoon action series pitch to me...