Anime Review: Aldnoah.Zero

written by Laurie Tom

Aldnoah.Zero got off to a spectacular start, being the only show of 2014 that left me completely mindblown by the end of the first episode, and for its first half it was my favorite thing that year. But it takes an unexpected direction after the halfway point and I don’t think it was for the better.

In an alternate present day, Mars has been colonized thanks to the 1972 discovery of a warp gate on the moon by the Apollo 17 mission. But Mars was still an inhospitable world and one of its early settlers discovered the remnants of an alien technology called Aldnoah. Aldnoah bound itself to his genetic material so that no one other than him and his descendants could activate it and he declared himself emperor of the new Vers Empire on Mars. Those who served him became known as knights.

In 1999, war broke out between Earth and Mars over sharing resources which resulted in the shattering of the moon’s warp gate, much of the moon itself, and stranding large chunks of the Martian military in the resulting satellite belt. Though the war ended with the breaking of the moon, it was not a decisive win for either side. Now in 2014, the Martian princess, Asseylum, granddaughter of the man who was first bound to Aldnoah, wishes to visit Earth in an overture of peace.

The story in Aldnoah.Zero really needs to be spoken about in two halves, partially because there is a time skip at the halfway point. The first half centers around the apparent assassination of Princess Asseylum by Terran terrorists (actually Martian terrorists who want to overthrow the royals, but when Martians and Terrans are both humans it’s not easy to tell them apart). Technologically superior Mars declares war and underequipped Earth is quickly invaded.

We see the war largely through the eyes of two characters; Inaho Kaizuka and Slaine Troyard. Though both are Terrans, Inaho has always lived on Earth and Slaine crash landed on Mars as a child and grew up as a servant of the Martian royal family.

The first half of the series is stuffed with fantastic underdog battles where Inaho takes out enemy pilots in superior mecha by outthinking them. Each Martian mecha is different, with unique powers and weaknesses due to the Aldnoah technology, making their defeat a puzzle to be solved. As a result, no two battles are the same.

As Inaho is trying to protect the princess, who didn’t actually die in the terrorist attack, Slaine is trying to rescue her and foil the plans of those who would have her killed. The two teenagers repeatedly come into contact with each other on opposite sides of the battlefield. Even though both of them fear for the princess’s safety and want her returned to stop the war, Slaine is afraid the Terrans will manipulate her and Inaho fears the same about the Martians, especially knowing that it was other Martians who originally tried to kill her.

This conflict comes to a head in the mid-series finale, which was amazing… except then the time skip happened.

How well the time skip is received likely depends on which male protagonist the viewer related to the most and how much they care about Slaine, who has proven to be a divisive character.

The second half takes time to get going with some strange plot concessions that range from improbable to head-scratching that ends up undoing much of the shock that happened in the mid-series finale and the plot is clearly restructured as a fight between Inaho and Slaine and what kind of future they want to bring about. Despite the fact they both love the princess doesn’t mean that they’re on the same page about protecting her.

The puzzle battles largely disappear, replaced by political intrigue and more general skirmishes as if to remind the viewers there’s still a war going on. The rest of the cast is still here, but largely fade into the background, leaving several of their personal stories unresolved.

As for the princess herself, while she is active and trying to stop the war in the first half, she is sadly fridged for a good portion of the second (almost literally) because otherwise things wouldn’t have gotten out of hand to the degree they did. She’s not a bad character, and once she’s active again she makes it clear that she is not a prize to be won and chooses her own path, but it would have been nice if she hadn’t spent so much of the second half as a figurehead.

I have mixed feelings about the second half largely because it wasn’t what I expected after the first, and I don’t think enough was done to explain the change in Slaine over the timeskip. While he doesn’t come across as a drastically different person, it’s clear that something about him is off and doesn’t entirely jive with who he was before.

And that’s the problem. The second half rides almost entirely on Slaine, whether or not the viewer buys his actions and the motivations behind them, and it’s a bit strange considering how powerless he was in the first.

Aldnoah.Zero could easily have run into another season if a different decision in the final episode had been made, but it manages to wrap up all the major plot threads in a satisfactory manner, as well as the fates of the three main characters of Inaho, Slaine, and Asseylum.

Overall, I would still recommend Aldnoah.Zero to people who aren’t otherwise inclined to watch mecha shows, because it focuses so much on interpersonal relationships and how communication (or lack there of) drives so much of what happens between people. There may be giant robots, but they are hardly the focus. The battles are well thought out, particularly in the first half, and I never felt like someone pulled an instant-win card to get them out of a tough strait.

But if one finds that they cannot stand Slaine in the first half of the show, it’s probably not a good idea to continue as it’s unlikely any opinion on him will improve.

Though I rarely comment on music, composer Hiroyuki Sawano has done a fantastic job with Aldnoah.Zero, creating memorable tracks such as “No Differences,” an anti-war theme that only plays during combat scenes, as if Princess Asseylum herself is there to remind the soldiers of Earth and Mars of why she had come in peace in the first place.

Number of Episodes: 24

Pluses: mecha combat where tactics matter, first half is full of unexpected and awesome plot twists, distinctive and memorable music score

Minuses: Slaine’s murky change in morality in the second half, second half is substantially weaker as a whole than the first, Martian side of war isn’t as fleshed out as its Terran counterpart making them harder to sympathize with

Aldnoah.Zero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll, Daisuki, and Hulu and is available subtitled.

laurietom Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

Kickstarter for Long List Anthology Launched!

Today is the first day for the Kickstarter of the Long List anthology. The purpose of the Long List anthology is to celebrate more of the short fiction chosen by the Hugo voters. This will be done by soliciting the short fiction works on the Hugo “long list” that the Hugo administration publish every year after giving the award. See the Kickstarter for more details

Thank you!

DP Fiction #3: “In Memoriam” by Rachel Reddick

I go by the cemetery every day on the way to work.

It’s not really a cemetery so much as a memorial. We don’t have the space for old-school burials like they did back on Earth. We don’t have the dirt to spare. We can’t spare the organs or nutrients left in the bodies, either. Anything that can be kept for later medical needs is preserved, and the rest is returned to the hydroponics and organics cycle.

We just have the memorial, which is between the main engineering section and my place in the habitation level. It’s a major intersection of corridors, and one of the largest open spaces that’s pressurized. It’s also the one small area where a few ornamental plants are grown, roses cared for inside their own boxes. The patch with plastic strands of grass always seemed strange to me, but perhaps they comforted those who came before. Their names are listed, starting in one corner and working their way down and across in steady columns. Names and dates, names and dates. People proceeding from life, into space, and into death.

I wish I could have met some of them. These were people who had known life on a living planet, and had chosen to leave it all behind. They committed themselves and their descendants to life as travelers through an empty desert, unto the seventh generation. Did they ever dream of finding a shortcut, and breathing the fresh air of the green world that we are chasing?

We never found a shortcut. If someone else found one, they have long since passed us by. The speed of light still stands as the ultimate limit, and we can only travel at a fraction of it. There isn’t even the option of sleeping through the long trip. We can store seeds and germ cells for centuries, but safely freezing a human brain and body has proven impossible. There are no non-toxic chemicals to prevent ice crystals from forming and shredding every tissue, severing the connections between neurons. Destroying what we sought to preserve. Thus, we end up taking the trip the long way.

For the most part, it’s a pleasant enough life. But I find myself wondering what it would be like, to live on a planet, where the gravity doesn’t vary so much from one level to another. Where the Coriolis effect from our spinning ship doesn’t send every thrown object a little bit sideways. Where we don’t have to keep track of just about every molecule and waste nothing. Where the sky outside the windows could be blue or cloudy, not always black with pinpricks of light. Where the arts of geology and meteorology are actually practiced, and not merely passed down from one generation to the next so that the knowledge is not lost. Where I am not a tech, and poetry can be something more than a frivolous hobby in between repair jobs.

Something different from here, where the dead are nothing more than names etched on a metal plate, and records stored in computer memory.

But then, ultimately, that is also true on a planet. Buried bones join the earth, only more slowly than our recycled ones do. After a few generations, all the personal details are lost. There is no one left who knows the stories behind the names and numbers.

The computers remember what people bothered to record. There are images of the celebrations of departure, and fewer of the settling into routine thereafter. We receive transmissions from Earth, too, but the increasingly distant news about cousins many times removed provides little comfort.

So I write when all the ship’s systems are running smoothly. I want to make sure that at least some stories are not forgotten. Not the grand stories, the sweeping tales of courageous repair of the hull or rescue from an engineering test gone awry. The little ones, about watching a child learning to walk at 0.5 g or the jokes told while on plumbing duty.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder what it will be like when we arrive. I have seen all the simulations of the sails unfurling. I have done some of the work on them myself, ensuring that they will be ready at the proper time. But the schematic of what it will do is less than what it is. The great sail will be a wing glittering ever brighter as the ship approaches its place of rest.

I will never see the sails open, or the blue-green oasis at our destination. There is a large blank space on the memorial, and one day, my name will be added to it.

I will never see the sails, but perhaps my children will. And I want them to know how much I longed for this, and remember our lost generations spent waiting in the desert.

So I walk by the cemetery every day. I read the names etched into the wall and try to imagine what the people must have been like. I try to remember the stories I hear about them and what is recorded of what they did. I spend a little more time on the more recent names. These were people I knew. My grandfather, who could make anything you want out of tofu and some mysterious secret ingredient. My grandmother, who could tell you where the stars were without even looking so long as she knew the time. My old friend, who died young in an awkward fall while goofing off like we all did. Now they are nothing but names and memories, and each of them is a small part of what sustains those of us who remain. I hold on to that hope, knowing that I will always be a part of those who follow after me.

The visit to the cemetery doesn’t last long. If I take a small detour, it’s on the way to work.

Author’s Note: The main idea behind the story was to answer one question: what would the passengers on a generation ship think in the middle of the journey? They have never lived on a planet, and never will. How do they keep going?

Rachel Reddick followed a passion for space through an astrophysics PhD at Stanford University. She is currently participating in the Insight Data Science program, to work on more down-to-Earth problems. Nonetheless, she enjoys Star Trek, as well as speculative fiction of all flavors.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, back the Kickstarter for the Long List anthology, or read the first two story offerings:
DP Fiction #1: “Taste the Whip” by Andy Dudak
DP Fiction #2: “Virtual Blues” by Lee Budar-Danoff

Spring 2015 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

Spring looks to be a slower season than the packed viewing schedule I held in winter. It helps that this time Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works is the only returning series that I was already watching and it won’t have to fight much for my viewing time. Last winter’s Fafner: Exodus will not air its second cour until later in the year.

Depending on how things shake out in spring, it’s possible I’ll go back and finish one or two of the shows I left behind in winter, but right now I’m just looking for two more series to watch alongside Fate/stay night.

Here are my thoughts on the first episodes of some of the new spring shows.

Blood Blockade Battlefront

blood blockade battlefront

Why I Watched It: New York City has become a battleground for the supernatural, cut off from the rest of the world by a bubble that keeps the craziness, and the New Yorkers, contained inside. I had heard favorable comparisons to the cult hit Baccano.

What I Thought: The first episode is pretty frantic with very little explained other than the basic worldbuilding that enables a world where otherworldly creatures existing openly on the streets along with normal humans. The combat is a little over the top, and I’m not sure I like the snooty demon who seems to be getting set up as the antagonist, but I love the mix of mundane and supernatural where the humans don’t see anything unusual about living with their new neighbors.

Verdict: I will be watching. Leonardo seems an unusual choice in protagonist in that his powers are decidedly non-combative in a very combat-oriented anime, but it might mean an interesting change of pace.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Gunslinger Stratos: The Animation

gunslingerstratos

Why I Watched It: Parallel worlds where the main character’s other self is the villain, paired with gravity-defying gun-fu combat scenes? It didn’t need much else to sell itself. It’s also based on the Gunslinger Stratos arcade game which never came to the US.

What I Thought: It’s not as light on story as I thought it would be (but that’s not saying it’s deep either). Tohru isn’t much different from most anime protagonists in that he’s a reserved young man who wants to do the right thing, but he’s a pretty good shot, likely only hampered because he’s such a nice guy, which is of course a problem his antagonistic alter ego doesn’t seem to have. Literally falling into a parallel world where crazy gun battles are commonplace is kind of contrived, but I’m willing to give this a benefit of a doubt just to get to the good stuff.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. Based off the first episodes I’ve seen, it’s surprisingly the one I want to watch the most out of this season’s premieres.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

The Heroic Legend of Arslan

arslan senki

Why I Watched It: Arslan Senki is a venerable novel series set in a fictional world inspired by historical Persia. It was adapted as a direct to video anime before in the 1990s, but was never finished. Considering its pedigree, I wanted to check it out.

What I Thought: The first episode didn’t impress me too much at first. Eleven-year-old Prince Arslan is woefully naive and mostly ignored by his royal parents. It’s a road that’s been trod before. But when he meets a prisoner-of-war his own age who’s destined for the slave market, he’s baffled that anyone would choose to die rather than be guaranteed food each day. Clearly the series is setting up for some shattering event that will throw Arslan into a war that challenges the beliefs he grew up with. And the people of the opposing country are not saints either, since they’re invading to kill the heathens who do not share their beliefs.

Verdict: I might be watching, but it’ll probably depend on what happens to Arslan and how quickly he matures (or if a more interesting cast member gets introduced). While he ages to fourteen in the next episode, I’m not sure how much more of his naivete I can take.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

is it wrong to pick up girls

Why I Watched It: That title says it all. It sounds like a comedy about someone whose life is essentially a role-playing game. I had to give it a shot no matter how bad it might be.

What I Thought: Main character Bell is surprisingly not trying to pick up every girl in sight, but rather wants to impress a single lady who saved his life (though his reason for going into the dungeon in the first place was to meet one). Believing that she’s totally out of his league, Bell embarks on a quest to become stronger in his strangely RPG-style world, which means level grinding to improve his stats and getting money to help grow the Familia, or adventurer’s guild, of his goddess patron. There’s some annoying fanservice courtesy of the goddess who has a crush of her own on Bell, but I like that Bell seems pretty set on who he wants.

Verdict: I’m probably going to pass. It was funny, but living in a RPG world feels really overdone right now, with both Sword Art Online and Log Horizon still in recent memory. I don’t think Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls brings anything new to the table.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

My Love Story!

mylovestory

Why I Watched It: Based on a girls’ comic, My Love Story! breaks popular convention in that the main character is a big, stocky guy with a heart of gold but the face of a thug. All the girls want his good-looking best friend instead, until he gets a chance to be someone’s hero.

What I Thought: It’s incredibly rare to see a romance from the male point of view, especially from the guy who is typically the wingman and has yet to discover he’s actually the protagonist in his own love story. Takeo is sweet, but a bit broken down since every single girl he’s ever had a crush on has instead confessed their affection to his conventionally handsome best friend (who then shoots them down). So when a girl crushes on Takeo for real he decides she must also be interested in his best friend and he should do whatever he can to help them hook up.

Verdict: I might be watching. While the setup is a nice change of pace, I’m not entirely sold on it. Being a non-action piece, a lot is going to rely on the characters, and other than Takeo himself I haven’t found anyone else engaging.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Rin-ne

rinne

Why I Watched It: The latest from manga creator Rumiko Takahashi, best known for Ranma ½ and Inuyasha (though my favorite of her work is Maison Ikkoku). My tastes have changed since I was originally introduced to her work and I don’t think I’ll like it as much anymore, but I’ll still check the latest out.

What I Thought: It definitely feels like a Takahashi series with her unique art style and brand of comedy, though I’m surprised the whole first episode went by without a single lewd joke. Instead much fun is made of male protagonist Rinne’s stinginess to the point that he believes main character Sakura’s 1500 yen ($12.61 US) is a small fortune. Most stories involving a girl who can see ghosts and a boy tasked with guiding restless spirits back to the wheel of reincarnation would probably take itself seriously, but Takahashi’s absurdist rendition of ghostbusting has Rinne paying a few yen every time he needs to operate/purchase the tools for his job and features a lonely ghost finally agreeing to go to the wheel of reincarnation because there are girls over there.

Verdict: I might come back and watch later. I was really surprised. If I liked comedy more I think this would have ranked higher.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Seraph of the End

seraphoftheend

Why I Watched It: Honestly, I didn’t really want to watch another show with vampires, no matter how nice the promo art looks, but Hiroyuki Sawano is one of my favorite composers ever and he’s scoring this one so I figured I’d at least listen.

What I Thought: Better than expected. When all humans above age 13 die to a mysterious virus, vampires take children under their “protection” and provide them with food and clothing in exchange for being livestock. Most of the first episode is story setup, showing main character Yuichiro and his best friend Mikaela as children as they deal with their new reality and try to escape the underground city the vampires are keeping them in, so it’s hard to see how the rest of the show will play out. The vampires are pretty ruthless though and I was surprised to see how high the underage body count was. The episode ends with a time skip bringing Yuichiro to sixteen and no information as to what happened in the intervening years.

Verdict: I might be watching. It’s piqued my interest, but I’ll have to see how it stacks up against the rest of the season. If it avoids having angsty vampires it’ll stand a better chance.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Conspicuously missing:

Digimon Adventure tri – The much anticipated 15th anniversary series for the Digimon franchise seems to have been delayed. After the hype train that has been running since last year, it’s a little bit of a disappointment, but hopefully this means the series will have a chance to fix any production problems it might have been having.

Sushi and Beyond – Based on a British journalist’s book about how he and his family took a 100-day trip to Japan to try out a wide variety of local foods. It seems that it’s being broadcast in some local Japanese TV stations in the US in partnership with NHK World, but there has been no simulcast arrangement.

laurietom
Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

“Long List” Anthology (Replacing the Mulligan Awards)

NOTE: The original post suggested the title “Ones to Watch” but someone rightly pointed out this implied an anthology of up-and-coming authors just starting to get noticed, which will probably be untrue more often than not. So, “Long List” is the working title at this point instead.

For anyone who read the previous plan proposing the Mulligan Awards, this announcement is to announce that there will be no Mulligan Awards, and to announce a new plan that I hope will accomplish the same goals I had in mind, but in a way that better fits my goals.

WHAT IS CHANGING?

There will be no Mulligan Award

There will be no attempt to use the numbers to extrapolate what would’ve been on the Hugo ballot without the voting slates.

There will still be a Kickstarter.

The Kickstarter will support a reprint SF/F anthology tentatively titled “Long List”.

The contents of the anthology will be those stories on the longer Hugo nomination stats list that they publish at WorldCon for the appropriate category, as long as:

The story was eligible for the Hugo in the appropriate year (especially, that it was first published in the appropriate year)
The author agrees to the terms, which will include 1 cent/word pay and attribution of the original publication.
If the story is still within its exclusivity period with the original publisher, the publisher agrees to allow the reprint.

The baseline goal of the Kickstarter will include the short story category. There will be stretch goals that will include the novelette and novella categories.

The anthology will be published in ebook formats.

I will consider doing this in future years as well, regardless of whether that year has a controversy or not. No matter what makes the ballot or how it makes the ballot, there are other stories that came very close–with the nomination numbers we will know which ones they are, and I see no reason why this couldn’t be an annual production.

WHY IS IT CHANGING?

For a variety of reasons. But first and foremost, it’s a matter of tone.

There has been a lot of anger surrounding this Hugo season from a variety of people with a variety of viewpoints. I am not going to examine that anger here–the SF corners of the Internet are full of that examination, and it’s all out there for you to read. What frustrates me most about this award season is the loss of excitement that usually surrounds it, of taking the time and space to share and discuss stories, to celebrate this genre that we all love so much, even though different people love different kinds of stories and different aspects. To me, the Hugos at their best are a recommended reading list vetted by a couple thousand fans that like all kinds of different things. I like them best when they’re a hodgepodge–some stuff perfectly suited to my reading, others that I don’t like or don’t understand but which are interesting as a study of understanding other people’s viewpoints and perspectives.

The reason I suggested the Mulligan Awards in the first place was because I wanted to offer a place where people could be excited about this award season again, where it wouldn’t just be anger from one end of the calendar to another. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that even though I wanted it to be a way to add positivity and excitement to the award season, the more I realized that it was inseparable from the anger because its basis was blame. And that it could make the experience of people already having a tough time even tougher. For example, if a novelist found out that she had almost made the ballot this year, that would be hard–almost making something is hard no matter the circumstances. If she then got a communication from someone she’d never heard of, offering her an award for not quite making the ballot? Well, no matter what the intent of the award, that might just hurt all the more.

Which brought me back to pondering what I really wanted to do with this project to begin with and how I could meet those goals in the most positive way. The idea of the award was exciting to me, but more exciting was that those works that didn’t quite make the ballot would get some attention, and maybe fans out there would find new authors and new publications that get them all the more excited for short fiction. And I decided that this kind of anthology would be better if I didn’t make any judgment calls–no consideration of whether something was on a slate, or whether it was recommended by who or why. The anthology is going to be a mixed bag, and I like that idea.

Anime Movie Review: Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan: The Movie

Lupin vs Conan

I was very surprised to see the Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan: The Movie go up on Hulu since it had been a couple years since the movie came out and the release in February was done with little to no fanfare. There is no English language DVD or Blu-ray release and it was not put out by the US licensees of Lupin III or Detective Conan (Case Closed in the US). Instead, the original Japanese production company was the one who posted it to Hulu.

I never watched any of the Lupin III series before largely because I’m not fond of the older art style (Lupin III started in the 1960s and doesn’t look like what we typically consider anime) and because I’m not really in the target demographic for his hijinks. Lupin is a womanizing thief who is constantly trying to get into the pants of various women, particularly a busty femme fatale who he both adores and is constantly being crossed by.

But Detective Conan was one of my favorite anime series when I was in college. I never saw the whole thing (it’s still running new episodes even today!), but Conan as a character is a nice mix of smartass and brilliant detective that it’s fun to watch him solve a case. He also has a bit of a problem in that he’s actually a teenager, but a mysterious drug that people used to try to kill him had the unexpected effect of de-aging him by about ten years instead, making him look like a first grader. Most people aren’t aware he’s really Shinichi Kudo and Conan Edogawa is just the alias he’s using while hiding his survival.

After the cold open, the movie helpfully gives the background of both the Lupin III and Detective Conan characters for those new to either one, but I think someone who has never seen either would have a more difficult time getting into the movie. Having never seen Lupin III I was only vaguely familiar with his crew of helpers and whenever one of them showed up and did something amazing it was all right, I could follow the story, but some of what they did felt out of character for a Conan movie. I imagine that fans in the reverse situation felt the same.

The mix of art and storytelling styles felt very jarring. Conan debuted in the 1990s, and while the art style is distinctive, it’s much closer to modern anime than Lupin III. When you put the characters together, they don’t look like they should be on screen at the same time. Lupin III’s art leans towards very thin individuals, particularly in the legs, with more realistically proportioned facial features. Conan’s male adults are bulkier and everyone has larger eyes. Conan also doesn’t do busty, but Lupin III’s Fujiko has a gigantic chest.

As far as the storytelling styles go, crossing Detective Conan and Lupin III is probably best likened to doing a James Bond and Encyclopedia Brown crossover. That’s a rather extreme comparison, but the target demographics are probably similar between countries. Lupin III is aimed at young men, older teenagers and adults. Hanky-panky is okay and expected. Detective Conan is aimed at children and families (though due to differing cultural standards, Conan routinely deals with murder and on screen blood and it’s okay since the criminals are caught in the end).

Which leaves me wondering: Who is this movie aimed at?

While Detective Conan has plenty of adult-aged fans, it’s still feels out of character to see Lupin trying to get frisky with Fujiko when that’s not something a fan has come to expect when watching Conan.

Moving past the rough style merge, the movie does all right. It’s a sequel to the Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan TV special that was not translated into English, but it’s possible to get by without having seen it. I haven’t.

It only really serves to explain the villain’s motivation in the end, but being a crossover movie I think most viewers are here to watch Lupin and Conan do their things, and they do them well. Conan not only solves a couple different mysteries at the same time, but manipulates multiple parties so when a big confrontation happens, no one gets hurt. And Lupin manages to pull off some fanciful getaways.

I’m not likely to track down any Lupin III material, but he’s scene stealer. I can see why he’s been such an enduring character, I’m a little surprised by how often he gets himself handcuffed only to escape later considering how Detective Conan’s own recurring thief character never gets that close to arrest.

And speaking of said thief… While he does appear in the movie, it’s not for very long, but he does get the last laugh. Kid fans should be pleased.

Overall, I’d say fans of one or the other franchise would be fine giving this movie a shot. It’s not as impenetrable to understand as I thought it would be, and better than I expected, but definitely has some rough edges.

Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan: The Movie is currently streaming subtitled on Hulu.

laurietom Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published inGalaxy’s Edge, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

Announcing The Mulligan Awards

NOTE: This post is outdated. Please visit this other article to find out about the updated plan. Other than this introductory note, I leave this post and its comments unchanged so that you can read about the idea if you like.

WHAT ARE THE MULLIGAN AWARDS?

The Mulligan Awards are a response to the joke that is this year’s Hugo ballot. This is for the people who want to compare and contrast great stories and publications that were chosen by the two thousand people who registered and nominated, rather than the opinion of just two or three.

So there will be a final ballot which is based on what non-voting-bloc Hugo voters nominated, an opportunity to vote and, depending on what can be arranged with the parties of interest and the level of interest from fandom, there may be trophies, or a reprint ebook anthology of those on the final ballot who are interested in participating.

WHY ARE THE MULLIGAN AWARDS?

There are a lot of people very upset about how the Hugo ballot turned out this year. No mystery why, since the final ballot is conspicuously off-kilter, matching the Sad Puppies voting bloc slate almost exactly with a bit of Rabid Puppies mixed in. The Hugo rules are set up so that anyone with the price of entry can vote, and there’s nothing to prevent a hivemind like the Correia-Torgersen-Vox collective from forcing whatever they want onto the ballot to take a stance on somethingsomething and prove the point about mumblemumble while only actually accomplishing in transforming the award from something that boils down interests of a bunch of interesting subsets of fandom into a ballot that only the collective itself thinks is worthy.

I will point out that the collective has not broken any rules, but they have made the ballot very dull because it only represents the opinion of three people, rather than the opinion of two thousand.

The biggest loss is the loss of discussion about new and interesting stories that rise out of the woodwork from a group voting in an uncoordinate fashion, which is what I look forward to the Hugos every year for. So the Mulligans are an attempt to salvage something worthwhile from the Hugo year, and give some recognition to authors who deserve it.

HOW DO I NOMINATE FOR THE MULLIGANS?

You already have or haven’t. The nominations will be based on Hugo nomination numbers rather than being a completely separate procedure. Each year the Hugo committee publishes a list of the top 15 nominees with voting counts for each one. The Mulligan nominations start with the Hugo nomination list, but estimates what the top 5 would be in the absence of the voting bloc.

How will it do this? Well, since the bloc has succeeded so thoroughly in sweeping the ballot, this implies that the members of the group followed their leader’s orders and voted slavishly for everything suggested. This should make them easier to spot in the nomination numbers because there will be some things from the voting bloc’s slate that didn’t get votes from anyone else, or almost no one else. That lowest number will give an estimate of how many actually followed orders–the lowest rather than the highest because some of the voting bloc’s choices may have been popular in their own right, and perhaps could have made it on the Hugo ballot without collusion. Then, by subtracting the estimated bloc count from all of the nominees that came from the bloc’s slate, that will be a rough estimate of what the ballot would look like without the bloc’s effects.

Note that this doesn’t automatically knock all stories from the voting bloc off the ballot–if they were legitimately popular in the overall vote, then they could be on the Mulligan ballot too.

These numbers aren’t released until after WorldCon, so the Mulligan final ballot can’t be released until September.

HOW DO I VOTE FOR THE MULLIGANS?

The details for this are still being determined and will be advertised at a later date. Ideally, if there’s some way that eligibility for actual Hugo voting can be verified by those who choose to vote, that would be the best way to keep the voting group similar–but I’m not sure if that will be possible. There will definitely be a way to vote, and it will be based on a rank-order instant-runoff system with “No Award” as an option–and counting will generally work like the published Hugo rules. Except that there will be no 5% minimum for a nominee to be listed.

ARE THE MULLIGANS AFFILIATED WITH THE HUGOS?

No. Not even slightly.

WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT TROPHIES? AND REPRINT ANTHOLOGY?

At the very least I will post a ballot and provide some way to vote. This I can set up for limited cost.

If there is enough interest, I might run a Kickstarter for the Mulligans–if enough of the Mulligan nominees are interested, a reprint ebook anthology paid at 1 cent per word or more. Whether I set up the Kickstarter will depend somewhat on how much interest people express, so if you’d be willing to kick in a few bucks to get a copy, let me know.

BUT MY VOTE IS ONE THAT’S GETTING SUBTRACTED! MY VOICE COUNTS!

If you are a member of the collective, then you can console yourself with the Hugo Awards.

WILL THIS RUN EVERY YEAR?

I sincerely hope it won’t need to. But if a bloc dominates again, I’ll consider it.

DP FICTION #2: “Virtual Blues” by Lee Budar-Danoff

Gray fog condensed on the slate roofs of City College and the surrounding town, dripping onto oblivious students and Salvatore Vega. Sal hunched against the damp. Drops slid down his ponytail and under the collar of his second-hand leather jacket. A gust of wind from a passing aircar banged Sal’s guitar case against his knee. Fine way to start a Saturday night of busking. His fingers itched to play. Sal ducked through a door.

The first location overflowed with wireheads. No audience to hear him with the wireds jacked in to their virtual realities, hair cut short to show off silver or gold disks gleaming with bling at the back of their necks. Desire clenched Sal’s gut for the ability to be online 24/7. His former wired audiences loved his digital concerts which had combined spontaneous mixes of music with improvised online looping and unlimited effects options. Instant access to a complete history of blues had allowed him to pull inspiration from Muddy Waters, Bonamassa or Paz-Moreno for melody lines and licks. Now he had to rely on old-fashioned methods of making music.

Someone laughed aloud in the otherwise quiet bar. Probably the old joke about real beer tasting better than virtual crap. The college kids spurned conversation in favor of virtual chat, which allowed them to drink without interruption. If he played, they’d complain that his live-only music interfered with their internal playlists. He sighed, rubbed the scarred skin hidden by his long hair, and moved on.

At the Holo-Moon Pub, the barman waved. “You got maybe an hour,” he said, skinny finger pointing to a corner. No stage, but a mic and an ancient Peavey amp sat ready. Sal tuned his vintage Martin and strummed a few chords to calm his gig nerves. He buried himself in his blues. When a large group of wireds arrived, Sal packed up and left, accepting the fifty the barman offered with a grateful nod.

Bouncers turned Sal away at the next few bars already jammed with wireheads. Each was eerie with silence unless a beer bottle was opened or glasses clinked under the draft taps. But Sensation Cafe’s owner had an unwired daughter who worked weekends; she smiled and handed Sal a free brew. “Take a spot under the outer awning.”

Wireheads passed by. Some paused near Sal, but their eyes twitched, the tell-tale indication of online activity. At best he provided background music while they completed their research papers or engaged in virtual chemistry labs. A few others, unwired like Sal, stopped to listen and tossed the odd bill into his open case. One older man dropped a folded twenty. Deep creases surrounded his eyes.

“Gracias,” Sal said between lyrics.

By midnight Sal counted his take and blew out a breath. He’d collected enough to pay the hostel for another week and then some. Enough to live on, with a little left for savings and another shot at being wired. The research hospital connected to the college was testing experimental anti-rejection drugs. While he qualified for the drugs, he still had to foot the bill for the wiring itself.

As he packed his guitar a woman walked up to him. Green eyes sparkled at Sal. She had cropped pink hair. No one with short hair ever displayed interest in Sal.

“You sound so good, Satan himself must have tuned your guitar.” Her tone, full and rich, sounded like that of a trained singer.

He unclipped an old LED tuner from his headstock. “I wish,” he said. If El Diablo showed up and offered surgery for his soul, he might take the deal.

“Want to get paid to play for an appreciative audience?”

“Sí, definitely.” He was down to his last spare B-string. The cost of new titanium alloy strings would be easier to bear with income from a bonus performance. The blues might ease his loss, but real-world needs called for cash. “I’m Sal.”

“Melusine.”

Sal followed her past his usual haunts and down damp side streets. She stopped in front of a building Sal hadn’t noticed before, a Victorian with delicate scrollwork, bay windows, and turrets. The windows were blacked out and no sign hung by the door. If this was a bar it must do lousy business. So much for new strings.

The oak door swung inward. A stocky woman with curly blond hair piled on top of her head stepped out and hugged Melusine.

“You found him?”

Melusine grinned. “Sal, meet Stella Johnson, owner of Unplugged.”

Stella looked him over. “Turn around.”

Stella probed the scar under his ponytail. He flinched.

“You’ll want to cut your hair or change the style. No one on staff hides their neck.”

“Wait,” Sal said, “I’m not your employee. Melusine offered me a paying gig.” He raised his guitar case.

Stella said, “Don’t freak. The gig’s yours. If it goes well, we’re hiring.” She pushed the door wide and beckoned Sal and Melusine inside.

Hiring?

The well-lit interior of Unplugged bore little resemblance to a bar. The mahogany floor was too clean. A fresh citrus scent permeated the air. Canned music played in the background. A variety of people, unwired and wired, sat at cozy tables talking and laughing. In the back rose a grand double staircase. Cubicles with hands-on net access equipment filled the left third of the room.

A teenage girl, neon-green bob bouncing, brought water to Sal and the others.

“What is this place?” Sal clutched the bottle, uneasy.

“Unplugged is a counseling center for unwireds,” Stella said.

“Many retreat from life,” Melusine said. “Therapy is the first step toward recovery. Look.”

A white-coated counselor escorted a young woman down the stairs. The woman clutched a braid to her chest. Sal watched her tuck newly-cut hair behind an ear. Tears stained her cheeks, but her eyes were filled with steel determination. She wiped her face and joined a table where everyone offered a smile or a hug.

Sal frowned, confused. This place, so bright and positive, was nothing like the clinic in Mexico. The doctors and psychologists there couldn’t help him. He used the blues to deal with his emotions and did his best to get along without breaking down. Sal gulped down his water. He should leave.

Before he could get out, Stella pointed to her own neck and asked, “How long since you lost your connection with the common mind of humanity?”

The last thing Sal wanted to do was talk about it. His connection had functioned for seventeen months before the anti-rejection drugs failed. “Five years,” he said, compelled to honesty by Stella’s loss, his words clipped, rude.

“I sense your pain, your frustration. But you aren’t alone.” Stella stared at the people around her. “We all struggle, marginalized, in a society that lives online.”

“Balance,” Melusine said, “is what we need. Between 24/7 access to the net, and interaction with the real world. Stella helped me and can help you too.”

“You’re wired,” said Sal. “Wired life is real, necessary to get along.”

“Sure,” she said, tapping the gold at the back of her neck. “But once I had it, I never disconnected.” She bit her lip and blushed. “I ignored people unless we interacted online, even if we were in the same room. After my boyfriend broke up with me, I almost got rid of my wiring.”

Voluntarily give up being wired? “That’s loco, chica. Not everyone has that problem.”

“Most of us wish wiring our brains had worked, or wish it hadn’t stopped working. But we still have online access.” Stella pointed to the cubicles, then to the phone in a client’s hand. “We have to concentrate on the positive. Your music can make a difference.”

“You don’t understand,” said Sal. “I don’t need grief counseling. I want to be wired.” He shoved his water bottle at Stella and headed for the door. He’d find a different job.

Melusine grabbed his hand and stopped him. Her touch, so warm, so soft, held Sal frozen in place. When she drew him to a platform with a stool, he didn’t resist.

“Play, Sal.”

He could rationalize his decision, tell himself he was only changing his mind because they’d offered to pay him. No one had even told him how much. But that wasn’t it. He wanted to play for her.

Sal set his case down. “What should I sing?”

Melusine patted his cheek. “Anything. Improvise. You’re the blues player.”

He sat in front of the clients and employees of Unplugged. With the warm wood of his Martin snug against his body, he played around a scale for inspiration. The A minor blues flowed from Sal to his audience, throbbing syncopation emphasizing gritty lyrics:

“My guitar sings the blues, of virtuality
Yeah she cries the blues of virtuality
You’ll miss her when she’s gone, lost reality.”

Chairs creaked as people shifted to face him. Conversations stopped. Sal opened up, allowing every minor chord to expose his failure, the anger and denial his audience shared over the lack of connection. Every person was riveted to his performance, their eyes clear and focused. So many people absorbed in his song. Like they wanted something. Nerves gave way to an endorphin rush.

Melusine walked behind him and skimmed her fingertips along his neck. Despite the instinct to pull away, conscious of his scar, a ripple of pleasure flowed across his skin. Sal’s fingers slipped. He played a dominant seventh, then shifted into his song’s relative major key. The brighter notes changed his melody, major chords evoking images of what the unwireds gained: the slow caress of a raindrop, the lush sweetness of a ripe strawberry, or the mesmerizing sound of a live guitar performance.

When Sal shifted to his minor blues progression, Melusine joined in, singing harmony.

“My love sings the blues, of virtuality,
But there’s more to life, than virtuality,
Hold me in your arms, flesh reality.”

The audience tapped their toes and rocked to the beat, in sync with Sal, Melusine, and each other. Sal absorbed their energy and gave it back, sweat beading his forehead, notes ringing out.

This was different from playing in the bars or on the street, earning the casual attention of those few who could hear him. Back when he could combine virtual tracks with a live performance in the privacy of his own studio, his attention was split between playing and programming. His rapport with those tuned in to his shows was digital, not visceral. But nothing came between Sal and this audience. The music created a bond intense as a deep kiss.

After the last note faded, the audience stood to clap, many with glistening eyes.

“You’re better now than you ever were online,” said Melusine.

“You remember my concerts?” Sal hadn’t known the identities behind the majority of avatars that applauded in cyberspace.

Her soft laugh answered. “How do you think I chose you for Unplugged? When you were wired, you borrowed the form of the music. Now, the blues are in your blood, deep, personal. Share your pain. Help us. Help yourself.”

“I don’t know if this changes anything,” he said. “About the surgery.”

“I know,” she whispered, her lips brushing his ear. “But you’re already changing things.”

Sal shivered at her touch, at the applause. On the edge of the crowd, Stella gave him a thumbs up. The steady gig was his; all he had to do was make a choice. His ponytail lay heavy against his scar. Sal plucked opening notes and everyone quieted, intent on him. Ironic, that playing here could pay his way out of needing the services they’d insist on offering him.

The tear-stained woman leaned forward, smiling, braid no longer clutched in her hand. She needed proof that unwired life wasn’t just worth living, but offered moments like this, real with sorrow and bliss. Sal nodded to her, to Melusine, and to Stella. The intense sensation of this performance outshone anything in his past. He wanted this.

Sal played on.

Author’s Note: At the current rate of technological progress, it isn’t hard to believe one day we’ll be able to directly access the Internet through wireless brain-computer interfaces (BCI). Yet, as with organ transplants, there is no guarantee that every person who wants a BCI will be able to use one without side effects, or even experience rejection. How will people react and cope with rejection, isolated as a have-not among the haves? As a guitar player, I already use online resources for my music. What would happen to a musician who experiences and then loses the ability to create the music he hears in his head?

Lee Budar-Danoff sails, plays guitar, and writes when she isn’t reading. Lee volunteers as Municipal Liaison for National Novel Writing Month and is an alum of the Viable Paradise Writer’s Workshop. A former history teacher, Lee spends that energy raising three children with her husband in Maryland.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to read DP Fiction #1: “Taste the Whip” by Andy Dudak or to visit our Support Page.

My Nebula Ballot 2015

written by David Steffen

The Nebula awards are nominated and voted by members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. I have been a member of SFWA in the past, but have chosen not to maintain my membership dues so I am not currently a member. So I can’t actually vote. But I do still follow the Nebula awards, and so I thought it worth posting my ballot as if I had the right to vote. The Nebula ballot has only 5 categories, four of them for lengths of written fiction and one for the Ray Bradbury Award for film. Unlike the Hugos, its voting system only allows you to vote for one thing, rather than rank-ordering all of them and doing instant runoff votes like the Hugos, so I will structure my post accordingly. You can find the full list of nominees here.

Because I don’t tend to read many novellas, because the Nebula voting period is so short, and because I was spent some of the Nebula voting period reading books for short-term review deadlines, I didn’t read any of the novella nominees this year.

Best Novel

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Ancillary Sword is the sequel to Ancillary Justice. I reviewed Ancillary Justice here. I gave Ancillary Sword a more lengthy review here. The story picks up shortly after the evens of Ancillary Justice. Breq the body-bound ship AI is now in the employ of Anaander Miaanai, the many-bodied emperor that rules over most of the colonized universe, albeit with a schism that has divided herself into a civil war. With the shutdown of the gate system that most ships depend on for transport between the stars, the empire has been thrown into disarray. Miaanai orders Breq to visit Athoek Station. This is the only assignment Breq would have accepted from the emperor, because she owes a debt to the sister of Lieutenant Awn, one of her former crew members who had died in her service.

It’s hard to match the novelty of Ancillary Justice, especially since one of the things I loved about that first book were the flashback sequences in the many-bodied ship AI with ancillary system. But this was a solid entry in its own right. I thought it felt rather incomplete, like the first half of a book rather than a whole book, to be concluded with Ancillary Mercy, but was still a good book, worthy of an award.

Best Novelette

“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)

(this review was part of my Nebula Novelette review, where I review the 3 nominated novelettes I found time to read)

The protagonist of the story is an every expanding near-omniscient near-omnipotent AI. It thinks it has everything under control, but it discovers a new threat, an inscrutable impossible unprovable threat–magic. The alteration of probability which only manifests when it can’t be proved. Alteration of probability isn’t inherently provable because there’s always a chance it could’ve turned out that way anyway, but when the same person can twist it in their favor time and time again, even if it’s not provable.

This story was great on so many levels. The outcome was never certain because the two sides are so powerful, but differently powerful. I love a great mix of science fiction and fantasy like this. Epic, fun, exciting.

Best Short Story

“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)

(this is an excerpt of my Nebula Short Story Review, where I review all 7 nominated short stories)

Humanity has been gone for eons, and there’s not much of interest going on anymore so the Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye have a lot of time just to talk. Until they find the DNA encoding of a human named Beth in a pod and recreate her. She is terribly ill and she only has time to hint at a secret that even the All-Seeing Eye doesn’t know before she dies from her illness. The Eye cannot allow this, and sets out to recreate Beth again and again and again, but each time they can’t keep her alive long enough.

I really enjoyed this story. The tone seems light at the beginning, like an intergalactic buddy road trip between the Meeker and the Eye, but as the Eye seeks Beth’s secret’s relentlessly it gets much darker. Solidly entertaining, far future SF.

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Edge of Tomorrow, Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (Warner Bros. Pictures)

(this is an excerpt of my Ray Bradbury Award Review, where I review the 5 nominated films that I could find rentals for)

Earth is under attack from an alien force known only as mimics, viciously deadly enemies that humans have only one battle against. Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) works in PR for the US military and has been ordered to the frontier of the war in France. The general in charge of the war effort orders Cage to go to the front lines to cover the war. When Cage attempts to blackmail his way out of the mission, he is taken under arrest and dropped at the front with the claim that he had tried to go AWOL and so is quickly forced into service, given only the most passing training in the mechsuits that are standard issue, and dropped into battle with everyone else. This area was supposed to be fairly quiet, but the battle here is intense. Cage manages to kill one of the mimics, but dies in the act, only to wake up earlier in the day when he’d woken on the base in handcuffs after the general had him arrested. He dies again, and again, and again. No one else has any memory of reliving the day except for Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), the super-soldier nicknamed “Full Metal Bitch” after she wreaked havoc against the mimics in the only battle against the mimics that the humans have won. She confides that she had won that battle because she had gone through the same thing he had–as long as he dies he will always restart at the same time and place.

I avoided this movie in theaters, because I haven’t really gone to any Tom Cruise movies since he kindof went publicly nuts. But I rented this one since it was nominated. I thought Tom Cruise was back to old form in it, and even if you don’t like it, well you get to see him die literally dozens of times. I thought Emily Blunt was especially good in her role as Rita, powerful but still affected by the PTSD of dying over and over and seeing so many die around her over. The looping-after-death element makes for a cool dynamic when well-plotted and when placed against large enough obstacles, which was well done here. Good spec FX, good casting all around, solidly entertaining.

Ray Bradbury Award Nominees 2015

written by David Steffen

The Ray Bradbury Award is not a Nebula, but nominations and voting and announcement are all tied up with the Nebula Awards, so its easy to bundle it in. The Ray Bradbury award is for science fiction and fantasy movies and is voted on by the members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. There is often some overlap with the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form but because of the difference in the voting groups this one seems to veer a bit more toward movies that are heavy on craft while the Hugo tends to lean toward fun popcorn movies.

I tried to watch all the movies before the Nebula voting deadline on end of day March 31st, but I acquire them by renting from Redbox and the release date on Redbox for one of the nominees (Interstellar) isn’t until March 31st. So that’s not enough time in my schedule to rent the movie and watch it. I’ll watch that movie later and give it a separate review.

1. Edge of Tomorrow, Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (Warner Bros. Pictures)

2. The Lego Movie, Screenplay by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Warner Bros. Pictures)

Emmett Brickowski is just a regular guy, pretty much the poster child for averageness in a world of Legos. He does everything exactly the way he’s supposed to do, but no one pays much attention to him. He meets a strange woman name WyldStyle who tells him he is the subject of a prophecy, the most interesting person in the world and the one who will save everyone from President Business who rules over all of Brickburg. WyldStyle is a master builder, a rare class of lego person who can take random Lego parts and turn them into a variety of imaginative things. She is part of an organized rebellion of master builders, and Emmett joins them in their fight.

I enjoyed this story thoroughly from beginning to end. The voice acting is great all around (particularly that of Chris Pratt as Emmett, Nick Offerson as Metal Beard, Will Arnett as Batman, and Liam Neeson as Good Cop/Bad Cop). Lots of fun, weird imagination, and as they see out of the worlds they travel and into the real world there’s actually a relatable real life story tied into it. Great stuff all around.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy, Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

I hadn’t heard of this Marvel franchise until this movie came out, one of the more obscure ones. In 1988 a young Peter Quill is abducted by aliens by a band of space pirates and is raised as one of them. In the present day he has his own ship and has grown up to be a bounty hunter (Starlord by name), taking whatever odd jobs he can find for money. After taking what seems to be a pretty straightforward job to find and deliver an orb, he’s suddenly the focus of attention from the assassin Gamora as well as the bounty hunters Groot (a tree person) and Rocket (a one-of-a-kind genetically modified raccoon) who are all after the orb. In the scuffle for the orb, they are all arrested and locked in a prison. Gamora tells them of her adoptive father Thanos who wants the orb for nefarious plans. They decide their only chance of escape is to work together, with help from another prisoner Drax the Destroyer, and stop Thanos.

Solidly fun, another Chris Pratt work, probably my favorite role that I have seen him in. Great casting all around, with Bradley Cooper memorably voicing Rocket. Action-packed, solidly fun popcorn movie. Lots of memorable lines, memorable fights, really no complaints all around.

4. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

The actor Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) is best known in his role as Birdman in multiple films in the early 90s, one of the earliest widely successful superhero franchises, but after that he has fallen into obscurity, not finding many widely acclaimed roles (sound familiar?). He is taking his chance, putting everything on the line for one final chance at popularity again by writing and acting in a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s Short Story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. The play is produced by his friend and lawyer Jake (Zach Galifianakis), stars Riggan’s girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough) and first-time Broadway actress Lesley (Naomi Watts). His daughter, fresh out of rehab, is his assistant. After an accident takes out the other actor, Ralph, Riggan replaces him at the last minute with talented but unpredictable Mike Shiner (Edward Norton). Opening night is fast approaching, there are two preview nights to get through before that, and Broadway’s toughest critic has it out for the production. To make it all worse, Riggan hears Birdman in his head, voicing the thoughts he doesn’t dare voice.

Generally I liked it. Riggan was relatable, flaws and all. The casting was solid (Emma Stone in particular I have yet to see play a role unconvincingly). The situation was full of all kinds of tension. Even though I generally don’t know a lot of things about filmmaking, I did notice that many of the scenes would’ve been very challenging because there were very long uncut segments which often included an actor walking from one room of the theater to another and then having a conversation–Sometimes they pass through a dark area that would’ve allowed a quick film cut, but there would still be very long segments that would be challenging to complete without making any mistake. This movie did win the Oscar for Best Picture in 2014. I found it very interesting that it got the Ray Bradbury nomination too, often there’s not a lot of overlap because the two awards. In the end I thought it was great in a lot of ways, but as I often find with more artsy films, I thought that it didn’t really tie everything together very well in the end–there were a lot of components that while adding flavor, in retrospect seemed to just add length to the movie that it didn’t need. We at least find out how the main thread of “how did the premier go?” happens, but there are a lot of momentous moments that seem to start their own major subplot and then are never mentioned again.

5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

Two years after the Battle of New York (depicted in The Avengers), Captain Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) is working for Nick Fury at SHIELD, and trying to adjust to modern society. SHIELD is on the brink of completing one of its most ambitious projects, a set of three helicarriers that fly in low orbit and link to a network of spy satellites that are meant to find and kill threats to society all over the globe. Not long before the project comes to fruition, Nick Fury is hit with a large scale and no-holds-barred attack led by a mysterious assassin known only as the Winter Soldier. Despite all of Fury’s security measures, he barely escapes with his life to warn Rogers that SHIELD is compromised. Rogers works together with Natalia Romanoff aka the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to get to the bottom of it.

This was one of my least favorite Marvel movies in the recent years of the franchise, which almost always produces movies I enjoy. There was certainly a lot going on, but the movie was quite long and it seemed like the fight scenes were drawn out way way too long, as if the director thought the movie needed to be padded. Neither the fight scenes nor the non-fight scenes did a lot to hold my attention. It might just be because I’m more interested in the superheroes with more fun powers instead of just the shield. For me the highlight of the movie was the platonic friendship between Rogers and Romanoff–a fun dynamic there.