7th Station ~TV, movies, games~

[Zunu]

Lost track of time, totally wasn't expecting Attack on Titan to show up on VRV.

Someone made a lengthy recap:



And a somewhat spoiler-ish 4th (and final) season trailer came out a few months ago:



As for the episode itself, it was great, but it raises more questions than it answers. I don't read manga or seek out spoilers, so I remain pleasantly confused for now.

[Celedam]

Disney had its conference call today to announce its post-beerbug plans for the next couple years, which means… trailers!

[Nayoko-Kihara]

Today I found out that a ton of the Discovery-owned shows I have enjoyed and supported since they began are being exclusively moved the new discovery+ streaming service (appreciate that tease of airing the first two episodes of the new seasons normally before hitting us with the paywall news).

Gonna free up a lot of DVR space for the rest of the household. Sad I won't be able toeasilywatch them anymore though.

[JonCC]

After how they bungled Warcraft III Reforged this seems like a nice return to form.
From my understanding this is a different team.
But it's probably best not to pre-order. Let's see first if reality matches hype.
Diablo II is one of the gaming greats. Hope they can pull it off.

[Celedam]

Lost track of time, totally wasn't expecting Attack on Titan to show up on VRV.

Huh. It's also on Hulu and has been since the beginning of the season, but I didn't notice it because the new episodes didn't bump it in my watchlist, not like new episodes usually do on Hulu. Now I have eleven episodes to catch up on.

[Zunu]

My bad, I should've mentioned it was there as well.

[Celedam]

I found an amazing Twitch channel called FORGOTTEN_VCR that might interest some of you. The channel owner creates and then plays his own VHS mix tapes of old action movies, martial arts movies, anime, kaiju, tokusatsu, music videos, instructional videos, commercials, production logos, and other bootleg nonsense from all across Asia. Just random scenes, completely without context, one after another. It's surreal.

A sampler that includes many of the channel's running gags…



The point seems to be that cheap video technology caused a boom in production and distribution in the '80s and '90s, so much so that the tapes — both legitimate and bootleg — are still floating around decades later. It happened around the world, of course, but the channel's focus on this sort of material from Asia just makes it… <chef's kiss>

(RedLetterMedia's "Best of the Worst" series does the same thing, in its own way.)

The channel owner emphasizes that he still uses real VCRs to edit the mix tapes together and then play them on the channel, because he wants them to be authentically lossy. And I can appreciate that, having done many of my own bootlegging parties while I was active with my university's anime club (c. 1992–94). That's how I was introduced to Tunnels, for example…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovsyrdlmztY

…years before Morning Musume or Utaban. Episodes of their first show (Tunnels no Minasan no Okage desu) were on the tapes along with the anime, and everything got copied together.

Anyhow, the FORGOTTEN_VCR channel is live only on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. It's on right now, as I post this, but I think it will be signing off for the night pretty soon.

https://www.twitch.tv/forgotten_vcr
https://www.youtube.com/c/FORGOTTENVCR

[erilaz]

Yay! Movie theaters are back!

A few of the theaters in my area have started to reopen. One of the four theaters in Berkeley is reopening tomorrow with limited, reserved seating. I just bought my ticket for a Saturday matinee of Raya and the Last Dragon. Oddly enough, the last movie I saw before everything shut down was also Disney (Onward).

[esm]

From the Random thread.

The one theater that's open in Berkeley has eleven new films showing on ten screens, but they're closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The other two theaters in the East Bay that are in the same chain (Landmark) are still completely closed. I think only two other theaters (both of them 16-screen multiplexes) are open within a ten-mile radius of where I live. At least four theaters are open in San Francisco.

I went to a 1 pm matinee of Raya and the Last Dragon in Berkeley today, and social distancing wasn't difficult, since there were only six other people at that screening. I may go back to see Minari tomorrow. Gotta show my support for Asian-American cinema!

I saw Minari a while back (online screening through A24). I liked it a lot. Might watch Rays and the Last Dragon on Disney Plus soon.

I watched The Last Blockbuster on Netflix last night and it was a bit insane how I almost teared up over people being so nostalgic about their VHS tapes.

[Celedam]

Five years ago, we were fooled by slick editing and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

Save us, James Gunn… with more slick editing and Steely Dan's "Dirty Work".