Angel...?

I picked up an issue of DVD Data yesterday because it had Hugh Jackman on the cover and a kick-arse X3 pullout poster inside the magazine. Interestingly enough, in Japan, the subtitle for X3 is "Final Decision," rather than "The Last Stand." Well, that makes sense considering the end of the movie, I guess.

I'm totally going to buy the R1 release and not waste my money on the inferior R2 release come January 6th. But still, I am happy that the movie is getting so much hype over here, since that translates into more shiny glossies for me. Japanese magazines know how to load up with the freebies, they do.

BTW, in DVD Data there's about five different photos of Angel wearing a movie!X-Men costume. (His piping appears to be dark grey, and his belt buckle is blue.) One of the images doesn't look like a promo photograph at all, it totally looks like a screenshot from the movie. But I could swear that in the movie Angel never got a proper X-Men costume. Was this from a deleted scene perhaps? Or did I miss something?

Star Trek: The Animated Series is also coming out on Japanese DVD. For some reason, this terrifies me.

Krishna DVD and more animation fascination

My Krishna: aayo natkhat nadlal DVD finally came today. The DVD itself is gorgeous. It comes in a thick, sturdy case with a ton of freebies - including a disc of CD-ROM games, a sheet of adorable stickers, glow-in-the-dark Krishna tatoos, a glittery Krishna desktop standee, a plastic peacock feather (which is supposed to be a bookmarks but works just fine for Krishna cosplay if you ask me), and a holographic "friendship bracelet." The inside of the DVD case is printed with shameless advertisements for even more swag, and website URLs for where to get it.

I haven't tried the CD-ROM games, so I can't comment on that. As for the extras on the DVD itself, it comes with theatrical trailers and THE WORLD'S CUTEST MUSIC VIDEO for the pop version of "Aayo Natkhat Nadlal," in which a bunch of cute kids in cute costumes dance around and sing and are terribly cute. The song itself is bilingual English and Hindi. The little "Krishna rap" bridge in English just slayed me. "Just live it up, bro! It's cool to be naughty!" Yes, those are actual English lines from the rapping part.

And you know what? Because it's Christmas, here's the music video for you. I tried to rip it with English subtitles, but I don't think that it worked. Anyway, Merry Whatever Holiday You Celebrate, and prepare to be ded from cute.

Other things about the DVD... It comes with subtitles in way too many languages. Also, like most Bollywood DVDs, in addition to chapter stops, there is also a menu that lets you skip directly to the musical numbers. I love that.

Now, as for the movie itself... I stand by what I predicted before. That 3D animation is shudder-inducingly creepy. No amount of cute music or cute voice acting can save it.

Since I've been on a big animation kick lately, and have been snatching up whatever nehaflix.com has on sale, here are some mini-reviews of what I've seen/purchased in the past couple months:

( Hanuman )

( Vikram and Betal )

( Krishna: The Birth )

( The Legend of Prince Rama )

( Songs and Stories of Ganesha )

( Long Long Ago: Hanuman )

( Bonus: The bargain-bin horrors of Geethanjali )