PVproject

Finally the time has come: I've just seen the movie Ghost in the Shell and here are my immediate impressions.



I've been waiting for so long for a movie adaptation of the original anime and I am aware I may be (at least partially) biased by this fact.
I already knew it wouldn't have been an easy ride, but the truth is my ghost was torn when I came out from the cinema.

The movie is of course a sci-fi action movie with strong visuals. The imagery of the original anime, with big buildings, lots of cables, holograms, slums and ugly people is intact and enjoyable.
The main characters not so much. Chief Aramaki, although interpreted by Takeshi Kitano, is more a western-action Callaghan than a wise eastern chief (and I still can't tell why he's the only one speaking subtitled Japanese). Batou sadly lacks his deep voice. Scarlett Johansson simply doesn't have the "physique du role", Major's face is way too expressive in my opinion, and why the heck does she breathe?!?

In the end though, what really made me feel disoriented is the fact that, although they somehow managed to recreate (often perfectly) the scenes from the original anime, the movie plot was almost totally unrelated to that. That's so weird: seing familiar scenes with a completely different story.

Last, but not least, the strong and visionary themes of the original anime went totally lost, having being replaced by a standard - almost boring - seek-of-the-origins plot, stereotyped acting and poorly made action-centric screenplay.

These are the reasons why I feel much more disappointed than expected.


If you have different opinions, or simpy want to share your thoughts about the movie, please leave a comment below!

Hello folks,
as you may (or may not) have heard, there is a new upcoming film adaptation of the well known animated movie Ghost in the Shell.

I've been waiting for it for almost 20 years and now I'm super excited (and a bit worried) about the result. Here is the movie trailer:




Here are a few facts about Ghost in the Shell.

Hello folks!
I just opened my new Instagram profile. I thought it would be cool to have one among other social networks, as it seems quite popular nowadays.
Truth is: I don't have a clue how to use it!
Not sure if I can upload images from my PC or from my phone only, don't know even how followers/friends work...



If someone of you already has an Instagram profile and is willing to help me a bit I would really appreciate it.
Just a few quick tips might be enough for me to start.

Thank you everybody!

Hello people!

In 2015 I've had the chance to create some character art for an upcoming kinetic novel.
The author has just published a new YouTube video, check it out!

Hello people!

In the last few days I have had some spare time and I had the chance to play some videogames.

I’ve always been a huge fan of videogames, but in the last years I’ve found myself a little less interested and frankly too busy to indulge in such amusement.

Yet I’ve had some good times in these days playing DCS World and Magic 2014: Duels Of The Planeswalkers (for those who don’t know, DCS World is an excellent combat flight simulator, almost equal to Flight Simulator X, and Magic 2014, well, it’s Magic: The Gathering card game on pc!). If you just wonder, my favorite games ever are Skyrim, Sim City and Civilization.

Well, long time had passed since I played videogames last time, but the good feeling is still there, intact. I couldn’t help wondering why? Why videogames have such a powerful impact on people? Why  do they make you feel so good? Why do they often feel like they’re better than real life?

Tough question. Here come my thoughts.

Videogames require you to put effort and time into some kind of activity and give you rewards when you succeed. And they also give you new goals with increasing rewards after you succeed. Rules are clear and unbreakable. You can have awareness and control of the game environment. And if you loose, you just hit the restart button.

What about real life? No one sets goals for you, you have to choose yourself your own goals, often without having a clue if you can achieve them or not. The only rules that are unbreakable are the laws of physics, all other rule made by the society gets disregarded all the time by people. You often receive poor rewards for your efforts, sometimes none. You often feel frustrated by a feeling of failure or inadequacy, you feel broken for being deluded or deceived by people around you. You have no chance to turn off real life and start a new game.

Of course you may feel really good for rewards in real life and there is also a big caveat: videogame rewards mean nothing in real life! Unfortunately, our brain cannot distinguish between real life rewards and videogame rewards: you just feel good in both cases.

Do not misunderstand me, I’m not trying to complain about real life. It’s just that sometimes you need some rest, sometimes you need to distract yourself from daily routine. That’s when the power of videogames comes into play.

Knowing that may help you thinking about the value of time spent on viedogames, and maybe acknowledge that sometimes you just need to share your time with some good friends instead.

 

 

Please let me know your thoughts about it!

And happy new year to everyone!