Summer Wars: An Anime For All Seasons



The gang's all here n' lookin' fer a fight!
Credit: Madhouse, Warner Bros, Funimation


                                  Summer Wars: An Anime For All Seasons

                                                               by

                                                                  Jay Agan

      On the way home from visiting the folks I stopped at the Best Buy on Polaris Parkway. Nothing in the movies section caught my eye so I gave the anime shelves a look see (Hmmm. Chrono Crusade? Naww. Nuns without guns are scarey enough!). Finding nothing there either, I got to getting. On the way out I passed the New Releases rack & saw the last two copies of Summer Wars on the bottom shelf (Hey! I heard of that one!) & snapped up a copy. I've now viewed it twice this week & have enjoyed every minute.

      Summer Wars, from the three guys who created The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, is a roller coaster combo of Disney, Wargames, & Casino Royale. What starts off as a delightful animated romance comedy morphs into an even more delightful cyber-terror armageddon.

      Time: The near future. Most of the worlds' population is "plugged" into "The Land of Oz" (No ToTo. Not THAT one!). A humungous social networking "realm" of business, communication, & gaming taking up most of the internet. Sorta-kinda a Yahoo cum Facebook on steroids & habaneros.

      A hostile artificial intelligence, code named Love Machine, is slipped into this cyber world by the U.S. Army for testing & immediately gets out of control. With its ability to hijack accounts/avatars of VIPs the world over, it accesses the military & civilian infrastructures of whole nations, causing chaos across the globe.

      It's up to the various protagonists to put a stop to what amounts to be a cyber-war waged by the runaway AI. With various ingenious methods, technological & otherwise, the seemingly invincible AI is countered then lured into a wagering match (It has a "thing" for games.) of Koi-koi (An involved game using Hanafuda cards), using the millions of stolen accounts/avatars as "chips". With control of the net wrested from the monster, it decides in a fit of pique, to drop a several ton satellite on the estate where its' opposition is coming from.

      The "backdrop" to the story is the PROLIFIC Jinnouchi clan. A former warrior caste family with many members as entrepreneurial professionals, emergency service & military personnel. Into their midst is dropped Kenji Koiso, a shy math genius/computer whiz "dragooned" into posing as the fiance of "the most popular girl in school", Notsuki Shinohara (Her mother is a Jinnouchi.).

      Kenji is tricked into "solving" & originally implicated in giving the 2056 digit security algorithm  for Oz to "Love Machine" but is later cleared. Then the fun starts.

      With Kenji, various members of the Jinnouchi clan fall on their familys' history & pool their resources to battle the menace. How they do it will have you rivetted & marvelling at their intelligence & drive to excel in conquering a seemingly unstoppable enemy (Granny Sakae uses her influence & a rotary phone!).

      Get this film. Watch this film. (You will) Enjoy this film!

      Go fish! ..... er ..... uh ..... Koi! Koi!
                                              
                                       Article copyright © 3-3-2011 Jay Agan

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Bring Me the Head of Walt Disney (Frozen or Otherwise)

Poster/photo credit: Walt Disney Studios

                                    

Bring Me the Head of Walt Disney (Frozen or Otherwise)

by

Jay Agan
      

"No! You can't see that movie. You'll be scared & have nightmares."

   

The usual response I'd get from Mom when pointing out some cool show advertised in the paper.("Uncle Vince" & Roger Corman were THE team back in the early 60s.) Missed out on a lot of great stuff due to such overprotectiveness. She meant well but come on! A kids' gotta have his fun. Not that we didn't go to movies. Mostly kiddy fare. Usually Disney, Disney, & more Disney. And therein hangs a tale.

After an umpteenth refusal for us to see Pit & the Pendulum or other such vileness, Mom let Dad take us to see another Disney offering. Ah, yes. More uplifting, wholesome, family goodness! Now, normally, people don't think anything from the Disney studios to be damaging to children. True, there was that off screen shooting of Bambies' mother, but that was a mild anomaly not to be repeated. Disney films were supposed to be masterpieces of life affirming, goodness & spiritually edifying fun & happiness. Or so most thought at the time. Howsomever, we kids hadn't reckoned on a tour de force of jollity & good cheer bearing the title of.........Old Yeller.

Dad took us as Mom had to stay home with baby sister. Had they come with us she would have understood the folly of shielding us from the world. She got it second hand. Boy, did she ever!

I don't remember that much about the flick except for the last 20-30 minutes: Disease! Rabies! Death!

Tommy Kirk takes the gun from Pa.

Cut to barn door opening.

Shot of foam at the mouth title character in stall.

Back to Kirk taking aim.

Quick cut of "Cujo" taking a flying leap at the camera.

Quick shot of gun muzzle. BANG!

Fast fade to black.

A few seconds pass as it registers on the audience.

Little moans. One here. Another there. Several more scattered round. More dispersed yelps sprinkle the crowd. More. A little more, till it's evenly spread throughout. All in coordination, it rises in pitch & volume. Higher. Louder. Louder! Higher!

All united & chorousing upward into an overwhelming crescendo of primal scream.

Pandaemonium. Whole & total.

People jumping, hitting the cieling. Writhing on the floor. Throwing up in the aisles. Running about in bounce off the walls panic.

The kids were even worse.

Maybe I exagerate but you get the picture. We were, to say the least, in shock. Traumatized.

Dad, scanning about the theater, a look of abject disgust of his face. Through the tears, I'm thinking, "cool!"

It settles down a bit & everyone watches the epilogue/wrap-up. (Older Disney flicks had anti-climactic ending scenes.) The replacement puppy shows up (They gonna shoot him too?) & the crying crap starts in again. The End. Not yet kiddies....not yet.

The square in Mt. Vernon lies on a gentle slope. The Vernon Theater occupied the lowest (southwest) corner. Out of this "wailing well" come the most piteous squeals, echoing off the First Knox Nat. Bank & other structures. Reverberating down the side alley, bouncing off Brinings News Stand & back up. (Vine St. didn't channel any of it away.) Gives it a sort of "stroboscopic" effect. First time I ever heard sound in quite that way.

Heading home, Dad tries to explain rabies to us. We're having none of that. Reality indeed! Hey! They shot the dog! Deadern'a door nail! Waaaaaaah! Cars pull to the side, thinking an emergency vehicle needs to pass.

After all the dog did for them! Brought fun & happiness into their dull, inbred, backwoods existence. Making life more interesting in Deliverence country. Saved em from the bear 'n wolves, etc. Then they had to go 'n shoot him! Darn old subsistance farmers!

We're sort of settled down by the time we pull into home.

Getting in, Mom cheerily greets us, " so. How was your movie?"

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
    
Younger brother, stares blankly at the wall, mouth hanging open. Youngest brother, sitting, back to a wall, rocking back & forth, muttering, "they shot the dog ....eh...eh ....eh ....eh ....eh ..eh....eh.....they shot the dog!" Little sister, letting out a minutes long wail, not once pausing for breath. Dad, staring at the cieling, with a "Why me?" kind of look.

"John. John? JOHN! What kind of movie did you take them to?! It wasn't that horror movie, was it?!"

"For Gods' sake Hon! It was a Walt Disney movie! It was Old Yeller!"

"So what happened?"

"Aw, they shot the dog."

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

"Oh, shut up!"

We didn't go to the movies much after that. On many a Sunday night after. When The Wonderful World of Disney/Color would come on. I'd curse that guy  whenever he'd appear.

"Hello, boys & girls!"

"You're sick Disney! Sick! I hate your slime covered guts! Die, you -------! Die!"

Fast forward a few years to military school. Wednesday movie in the rec hall. 16mm projector puttering away. (Buena Vista presents.......uh oh.) It's the one about John Wesley Powell exploring the Grand Canyon.

"We can't take the dog with us. Here...", handing the rifle over. (Oh, no. Not again?!)

The guy takes aim.

Cut to a wide eyed, happy looking, wiggly tailed, little terrier, toungue hanging out. I swear, the dog actually smiled!

Hand pulls the hammer back.

Back to happy dog.

"Agan, quit yer cryin!

"I'm not cryin!"

"Yeah, right."

"What's goin on?"

"Aw, Agan's cryin."

"Shut up man! I'ma kick yer butt!"

"Yeah, right."

Guy relents & lowers the rifle. The pup is saved. Whew!

Yes sir! The ole tried 'n true Disney formula: KILL THE DOG!

Folks think I'm warped due to all the crazy flicks/books I've watched/read over the years. Not so. It wasn't Lugosi, Karloff,  Price, Corman, the Chaneys or any of the other greats who put my miniscule grey matter in a bunch.

It was that darned Disney.

I hate you Walt.


Article copyright © 12-17-20


Old Yeller as I saw it. (Parody trailer is not mine).


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DISCLAIMER: All images used on this blog are strictly copyrights of their owners. I do not claim credit/ownership for any images used here in my blog unless stated otherwise. If I have offended anyone by posting any images on my blog, please contact me via email and I will remove specified image(s) ASAP.