Pacific Rim

Ever since I was in elementary school I’ve watched mecha anime like Dai-Guard, Full Metal Panic!, and The Big O; and I’ve grown to love more series as I’ve grown up such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. I’ve also had an affinity for giant monsters, or Kaiju, such as Godzilla (I’ve reviewed Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster). Guillermo Del Toro’s new film, Pacific Rim, is a love letter to the giant robot and monster genres—packed full of action, heroes, carnage, and beasts. However, what separates this project from other blockbuster fair (such as Michael Bay’s Transformers, a film that regrettably has been compared to this one) is the passion and creativity imbedded in its design.

Trance

Trance, latest film from Danny Boyle of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire fame, is a movie I find comparable to Christopher Nolan’s Inception in a couple of ways. Both use interesting visuals in stories about a group of criminals utilizing mind-delving techniques that play with both the conceptions of both the characters and the audience. However, they are also similar in that these premises are made needlessly convoluted and once you look past the interesting idea; there isn’t a lot of character depth or writing to really carry it.