Tag Archives: Film

Summer 2021 – Week 8 in Review

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Jeez, the anime seasonal schedule is all kinds of messed up, huh? According to broadcast schedules, late August is somehow just two-thirds of the way through the summer season. Well, I can’t exactly complain, and it’s frankly my own fault for not transitioning to a more appropriate title system over a year ago. I dunno, the 13-week divisions just seem like a convenient partitioning device; and at this point, it’d probably be more confusing to change the system, anyway.

That aside, you folks probably aren’t here to read me muse about the outdated framing of these vaguely defined articles. You’re here for some friggin’ reviews, and I’m here to provide, with an odd selection of features ranging from giant ants to journeys beyond the stars. There’s an insurmountably vast number of great films out there, and I’m delighted to share and reflect on just a few more of them. Let’s get to work!

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Summer 2021 – Week 7 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time! I’ve got a couple choice film cuts for you all today, as we explored an old American classic, and a more recent anime one. I’d been meaning to get to Tekkonkinkreet forever, and while I loved the film, I’m a little annoyed that watching it has only left me with even more homework, as now I must read everything Taiyo Matsumoto has ever written. Additionally, we’ve hit the second act break in Wano, which I’ve decided is a fine opportunity to take stock of the journey so far. And before you even ask, no I have not yet seen the final Evangelion movie, but I will as soon as possible! Believe me, you folks will be the first to know, so long as I see it on a Tuesday night and don’t talk to anyone else before my Wednesday post goes up. In the meantime, let’s break down some films!

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Summer 2021 – Week 6 in Review

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Hello folks, and what the heck is up. Personally, I’ve been feeling pretty good about my progress getting back into regular jogging – there were a disappointingly sedentary couple of years there, but I’ve recently been sticking to three runs a week, and feeling both physically and emotionally better for it. Anyway, we’ve got an excellent set of films to run through today, ranging from a David Lynch classic to some actual goddamn anime. Meanwhile, I’ve still been plugging away at One Piece, and recently wrote up a Whole Cake-centric exploration of family. I’m frankly not emotionally prepared for One Piece to exit my life, and you’ll be getting an article soon about how that feels as well, but for now I’m enjoying Wano with all the passion I can possibly muster. In the meantime, let’s peruse some fine film selections, as we sort through another Week in Review!

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Summer 2021 – Week 5 in Review

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Buckle up folks, we’ve got a pile of films to get through and not much time to do it! The house was pretty darn productive this week, with our viewings ranging from mid-century horror to modern family films, along with a delightful garnish of One Piece. We are at this point in full savoring mode for Wano, consuming only an episode or two at a time, and making the most of what we have left. After all, when each sequence of episodes offers a few highlights like this, it feels like it’d be disrespectful to rush through. In the meantime, we’ve actually been turning back to catch up on all the filler episodes we initially skipped past, and enjoying the low-stakes nostalgia of conflicts like “Sanji’s gotta win a cooking contest!” It’s been a cheery week on the whole, and I’m eager to share my findings with you all, so let’s get started on the Week in Review!

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Summer 2021 – Week 3 in Review

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How the hell do these articles keep getting so long. The movie reviews were supposed to be quick reads, just a paragraph or so! I’m pretty sure they started as blurbs, but like all of my projects, I eventually start writing until there are no more words to write, and doubling my workload for no particularly good reason.

Well, I’ve got a meaty one for you all this week, full of diverse movie reviews, as well as the requisite dash of One Piece. Having spent most of the year so far powering through dozens of episodes a week, it’s a little unnerving to consider that I’m less than a hundred episodes from the finish line. Fortunately, Wano is such a visual upgrade for the series that I really can’t watch at the pace I used to, and am now forced to actually appreciate each episode with my full, undivided attention. “One Piece has gotten too beautiful to speed-watch” is a pretty nice problem to have, so I’ve few complaints as we enter the show’s current arc. In the meantime, let’s burn down some fresh films!

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Summer 2021 – Week 2 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. I’m proud to report that I was fully back on board the classics train this week, as I powered through three essential films that were all high on my to-watch list. One Piece still dominates a fair portion of the household’s viewing hours, but I’ve been making a point of setting some evenings aside, and should hopefully be back on a more reliable film schedule going forward. As for One Piece itself, we’re currently near the end of Whole Cake Island, meaning I will soon be watching One Piece’s incomplete, ongoing current arc.

That fact seems absurd to me. Just one year ago, One Piece was an implacable monument, a challenge I might get around to once I’d retired or something. I’d never have dreamed the show would evolve into something as gripping and dramatically complex as Hunter x Hunter – but here I am, emphatically wrong, happily equipped with the knowledge that there are two outstanding shonens in the world, and one of them is a legit fantasy epic. Anyway, let’s get to the movies!

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Summer 2021 – Week 1 in Review

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. According to the anime season-based schedule that I’m still pointlessly employing, this is technically the first week of the summer, which greeted us with a scorching heat wave followed by an inexplicable cold front. This was also the week that saw me getting sick as a dog for the first time since quarantine began, and thus unable to power through quite as many films as I’d have liked. I still ended up with a pretty diverse selection of features though, from films to live-action series to the inexorable procession of One Piece. I hope you’re all enjoying these meteorological harbingers of doom as best as you can, and if not, perhaps my rambling can at least distract you for a moment or two. Let’s storm on through another Week in Review!

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Spring 2021 – Week 13 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. This week, as you might imagine, I watched a whole bunch of One Piece. Seriously, I say that pretty often, but it was a loooot of One Piece. Dressrosa is over one hundred goddamn episodes long, and I ended up powering through the last two-thirds of it in roughly eight to ten days. And as if that weren’t enough, I also started diving into One Piece’s associated films, and at last checked out Hosoda’s utterly stunning contribution to the One Piece canon (canon as in body of work, not canon as in… you know what I mean). I did also watch one live-action film this week, but I’m warning you now that the One Piece onslaught is about to begin. Let’s break it all down in the Week in Review!

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Spring 2021 – Week 10 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. It was a productive week over at my house, as we marched through a sequence of acclaimed films, and also powered all the way through One Piece’s first post-time skip arc. The Straw Hats have been attempting to reach Fishman Island for over two hundred goddamn episodes now, having first set sail for it at the end of Enies’ Lobby before being interrupted by Thriller Bark, scattered at Sabaody, and eventually implicated in a little light treason. I can’t imagine what that wait felt like at a weekly episodic pace, but given the island’s ultimate complexity, I could believe Oda’s been slowly drafting its story for that entire span. We’re gonna go deep on that arc at the end of this article, but let’s start off with some lighter attractions, as we explore some high quality cinema. Without further ado, it’s the goddamn Week in Review.

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Spring 2021 – Week 9 in Review

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Hello everyone, and welcome on back to Wrong Every Time. Having largely munched through the Ghibli catalog at this point, this week my house wandered through a different animation legacy, as we checked out the first and last feature films of a certain Don Bluth. Many of Bluth’s films have a profound nostalgic pull for me; his weird, frequently dark films resonated with me more strongly than Disney’s offerings, and thus I still have fond memories of The Land Before Time, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and even A Troll in Central Park. This week I at last checked out his masterful Secret of NIMH, along with the unfortunate Titan A.E., as well as a host of other films and shows. We’ve got plenty to get through, so let’s dive right into the Week in Review!

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