She'll be Comin' 'Round the Mountains...

I continued the Munekyunkissa project during my time online today-- got up to the 63rd DVD in the series. Highlights of today's crop worthy of note include Kumiko Hayama in J-cup Amateur Nakadashi Miku (September 2009), Kyoko Nakano in I-cup Amateur Nakadashi Kotone (November 2009), Miharu Izawa in I-cup Amateur Nakadashi Misuzu (December 2009), Yume Sazanami in K-cup Amateur Nakadashi Miyoko January 2010), and long-time favorite Yuuki Manaka whose face is mostly eclipsed above left in N-cup Amateur Nakadashi Atsuko (November 2009).

I also took my son to see The Avengers today. After all the hype, I was a bit disappointed. It was a typical comic book movie, and actually kind of boring-- I actually had to fight to keep my eyes open during the last hour of non-stop action... That is the fault of so many contemporary U.S. films: Too much action. No pacing. It's the reason I've never been able to get into Hong Kong action films. Japanese and Korean films (the ones that don't ape Hong Kong or current U.S. films) have plenty of over-the-top action and violence, but they also have pacing. Sergio Leone picked this up from Japanese film. Long, slow build-up, then POW! Non-stop POW! POW! POW! creates no tension or suspense. It becomes the opposite-- a tranquilizer. The best of these comic book movies so far, I think, was last year's X-Men: First Class. It's the only one where I've really cared about the characters, rather than the BANG! ZOOM! POW! aspect (which I never care about). Funny thing is, I wound up talking about these comic book movies to a co-worker, and he said X-Men: First Class was the one film of the group he didn't like: "Too slow." Most of the others just blend into one blur to me... I see IMDb users have voted The Avengers the #29 movie of all time which says a lot... about IMDb users... Although, to be fair, I see some really worthy films on the list, which would not be on a typical public list... Anyway, Avengers had its moments. Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. are always fun to watch, and they're in fine form here. Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Hulk was particularly good. I'd have probably liked it better if I'd gone in expecting just another comic-book movie. Six stars out of Ten from me.