Fantasia 2008

Today Fantasia announced its programmation:

The 12th edition of the Fantasia Film Festival, North America's premier genre cinema event, will be held from July 3rd to July 21st, 2008 in three theatres (Hall, J.A. DeSeve and D.B. Clarke) of Montreal's Concordia University. This year it offers more than 100 feature films, over 200 shorts, 7 documentaries and there will be also more than fifty guests present to introduce their movies. The Program Book will be on sale Sunday June 29th at the cost of $5. Tickets will be available from July 3rd for $8.00 or $70 for 10 tickets.

The programming includes 56 Asian movies: 23 from Japan, 1 from China, 10 from Hong Kong, 16 from Korea, 5 from Thailand and 1 from Vietnam.

The selection of anime is rather thin this year: Batman: Gotham Knight (a USA/Japan coproduction that give the Animatrix treatment to Batman with six animated shorts directed by Yasuhiro Aoki, Futoshi Higashide, Toshiyuki Kuboka, Hiroshi Morioka, Shoujirou Nishimi and Nam Jong-sik) and Genius Party (the experimental animated anthology from studio 4'C that we talked about in PA#96).

However, the selection offers more live-action movies based on manga. The most obvious is L: Change the World (Hideo Nakata's [Ring] prequel based on Death Note), but there's also Akanbo Shoujo (directed by Yudai Yamaguchi based on the popular Kazuo Umezu's popular manga), Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (dir. by Takashi Yamazaki and adapted from Yohei Saigan's manga Sanchome no Yuhi: Yuyake no Uta), Be a Man! Samurai School (dir. by Tak Sakaguchi, based on Akira Miyashita's manga Sakigake! Otoko Juku) and Le Grand Chef (a Korean movie dir. by Jeon Yun-su and based on a popular Manhwa).

The festival will also show three Nikkatsu action movies from the 60s: A Colt is my Passport (1967), Gangster VIP (1968), and Velvet Hustler (1967).

The other Japanese movies are: Accuracy of Death, Adrift in Tokyo, Black Belt, Chanbara Beauty, The Chasing World, Gachi Boy: Wresling with a Memory, Machine Girl (a coproduction with the USA), The Most Beautiful Night in the World, Negative Happy Chain Saw Edge, Robo Rock, Sasori (a coproduction with HK), The Shadow Spirit, Shamo (a coproduction with HK), Sukiyaki Western Django (the latest Takashi Miike), Tokyo Gore Police and X-Cross.

Another notable movie is The Midnight Meat Train (a USA movie dir. by Ryuhei Kitamura [Versus, Aragami] and based on a story by Clive Barker).

The Japanese guests will be Tak Sakaguchi (Tokyo Gore Police, Be a Man! Samurai School), Isao Karasawa (Be a Man! Samurai School), Ryuhei Kitamura (Midnight Meat Train), Eihi Shiina (Tokyo Gore Police), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) and we must also mention Mark Schilling (the movie historian, who will present A Colt Is my Passport).

The other Asian movies are: Alone (Thai), Art of the Devil 3 (Thai), The Assembly (China), Beautiful Sunday (Kor), The Butcher (Kor), The Detective (HK), Disciples of the 36th Chamber (HK, a Shaw Brothers movie with Gordon Liu, who will attend the movie presentation), An Emperess & the Warrior (HK/China), Epitaph (Kor), 4bia (Thai), Going by the Book (Kor), Handle Me with Care (Thai), A Love (Kor), Mad Detective (HK), May 18th (Kor), The Moss (HK), Muay Thai Chaiya (Thai), No Mercy for the Rude (Kor), Our Town (Kor), Paradise Murdered (Kor), Punch Lady (Kor), The Pye-Dog (HK), The Rebel (Vietnam), Seven Days (Kor), The Sparrow (HK), A Tale of Legendary Libido (Kor), Triangle (HK/China), Voice of a Murdered (Kor), Who's that Knocking at my Door? (Kor), and Wide Awake (Kor).

Happy Festival!

(See also the ANN news entry)

More Fantasia reviews

I've added some live-action reviews from last year's Fantasia Festival on PA's webpage.

There's not many of them so far, but I will add more when I have time (for the moment I am rather swamped in production and July will be a busy month with Fantasia and Otakuthon!).

I Survived a Japanese Game Show!

I usually hate reality TV, but I stumbled upon this one while channel surfing during my lunch break. I watched a few minutes out of curiosity and it was quite hilarious.

The idea behind this show is pretty simple: ten americans have been selected to participate in a reality TV game show -- the funny things is that they have NO idea in which kind of show they are participating -- and are send to Japan to compete in Japanese game shows (and we all know how silly and punishing those can be). All this for a chance to win a mere quarter of million dollars.

I've seen maybe ten minutes of it. It is funny, but not because of the silly game shows (I pity the poor souls who participate in this humiliation). Most of the participants never left the USA (even their State in some cases), so for them Japan is like they landed on Mars! I am not sure I could take more of it. I've recorded it on the PVR to check it later. Just in case!

It runs on ABC Tuesday at 9 PM.

Fantasia is coming!

Fantasia is coming soon and its programming will be unveiled at a press conference June 26th. Soon after, it will be available for consultation on their web site: www.fantasiafestival.com!

They will also launch the program book at a “Fantasia 2008 Preview Night“ hosted at the Centre St-Ambroise (5080 St-Ambroise, in St-Henri, Montreal) Friday June 27th from 9 PM. Come get your copy, watch this year's trailers and drink a nice cold St-Ambroise! Admission is free and the program of this 12th edition of the Fantasia Festival is $5. Spread the word!

I'll give details on the progamming Thursday. Stay tuned!

Bonne Saint-Jean Baptiste!

C'est la Saint-Jean pis je suis encore devant l'ordinateur à travailler... un vrai bourreau de travail! Mais j'm'enverrais bien un bière par example!

It's the Saint-Jean (one of our National Holidays) and I'm still here working... I guess I'm a workaholic. I'd rather have a couple shots of vodka!

Bonne Saint-Jean tout l'monde!

SPJA Nomination for PA

Protoculture Addicts is nominated in the “Best Publication” category for the 2008 Society for the Promotion of Japanese Animation Industry Award alongside Anime Insider, Newtype, Otaku USA and Shojo Beat. The vote was closed on May 15th and the results will be announced during the SPJA Industry Reception at Anime Expo® 2008.

Source: Anime News Network.

ANN congratulates Claude J Pelletier

Anime News Network congratulates Claude J Pelletier, Protoculture Addicts' editor-in-chief, for receiving the Momiji Award. [Link]

More movie & festival reviews

I've just put online a bunch of movie reviews from last year's Montreal World Film Festival.

You can access them either at this updated blog entry or on Protoculture's web site.

Boréal

Boréal 2008 est maintenant terminé.

Ce fut un congrès agréable et amusant. Ça fait du bien de revoir tout ce beau monde du milieu SFQ.

Vous pouvez voir mes photos du congrés en accédant à ma Mac Web Gallery.

PA's Editor-in-chief to receive Momiji Award

Anime North will honor Protoculture Addicts' founder and Editor-in-chief, Claude J Pelletier, with the Momiji Award at the May 23-25 2008 convention in Toronto, Canada.

This Canadian Award honours “people who laid the foundations and helped to nurture the world-wide love of anime and manga that we all share.” The Award was previously presented to Fred Ladd (2001), Tezuka Studio's Takayuki Matsutani (2002), Frank Miller (2003), Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli (2004), Carl Macek (2005), Go Nagai (2006), and Peter Fernandez & Corinne Orr (2007).

Claude J Pelletier will also be a guest at Otakuthon (July 26-27) and Chibi-PA (September 27-28).

More information on Anime News Network.

Boréal 2008

Le 25e congrès de la science-fiction et du fantastique, Boréal 2008, se tiendra les 9, 10 et 11 mai à l'Université Concordia de Montréal (Pavillon Henry F Hall, 1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest) sous le thème “Pour une Science-Fiction Citoyenne.”

Vous pouvez consulter le programme et trouver toutes les information nécessaire sur le site de Boréal.



Je vais faire tout mon possible pour y assister les trois jours (du moins en fin d'après-midi et en soirées).

Je me serais inscrit d'avance s'il y avait un moyen de le faire par internet (comme quoi les gens de la SFQ / SFCF (pour faire plaisir à Jean-Louis) sont pas encore au niveau des paiments électronique type PayPal...)

Charmante affiche. Dommage que le nom de l'artiste ne soit pas mentionné sur le site (et il est illisible sur l'illustration de l'affiche de la page web). Serait-ce Fifine prise dans la mêlée?

Fantasia to get subsidies from the SODEC [Updated]

I just read today in the free newspaper 24 Heures that the Festival Fantasia will finally received governmental subsidies from the SODEC (Société de développement des entreprises culturelles / Society for the development of cultural ventures).

The subsidies were announced by the SODEC yesterday.

Six movie festivals in Quebec (including four in Montreal) will share subsidies of $825, 000.

The other festivals include the Montreal World Film Festival (getting $225,000), le Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (getting $220,000), le Carrousel International du Film de Rimouski (getting $120,000), le Festival du Cinéma International D'Abitibi-Témiscamingue (getting $115,000) and Les Recontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montreal (getting $95,000).

Fantasia will receive a $50,000 subsidy from the SODEC. It is an improvement since they only got $35,000 in 2007 from the Municipal & Regional Affairs Ministry. It is a little disappointing, since the festival deserves more, but it will certainly means a few improvement to the festival this year (more movies? more guests?). Fantasia has yet to comment or emit a press release on the SODEC announcement.

The 12th edition of Fantasia, the North American Premier Genre Film Festival (known for showing lots of edgy Japanese live-action and anime), will be held July 3-21 2008.

[updated 2008/04/17 with details from The Gazette 2008/04/16: D5]

Alleluia Time Machine!

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new, bigger, network drive as the hard drive plugged to my Airport Extreme was already getting full. This allowed me to free a drive for Time Machine. I had the new Mac OS (10.5, aka Leopard) installed on both my iMacs for months, but never got around setting up Time Machine, Mac's new automatic backup software, because I didn't have any spare hard drive. I first set up Time Machine on my main iMac (Intel latest generation). That's the one I use for work, so it was my first priority. It was quite easy to install: I had just to plug the spare drive (aptly named Tardis) on the USB port and turn Time Machine on. It immediately started to make the first, full backup. After that it makes hourly incremental backups. “Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.” It does that until the drive is full and then it erase the backups and starts again. It really gives you a sense of security. But if backups make you feel safe, it is mostly because you think that you will probably never need it anyway...

A few days later, being quite satisfied with how the software was working (mainly because it was not slowing the system--and therefore my work--when doing backups), I decided to implement Time Machine on my secondary iMac (a pre-iSight G5 that I use for backup, research, testing and download). First, I had to free another, smaller, hard drive by moving content around (to Navi, the network drive plugged to Airport Extreme, and to Tardis). Since it was a smaller drive, I also had to set up TM to exclude some, less important, folders (Music, Movie), while doing its backup. Once turned on, Time Machine started doing it backup quietly and flawlessly. After a while you forget about it. It's part of the system. It's just a safety net...

About a week later, I noticed that my secondary iMac was getting quite slow. I checked to see if one of the softwares was dragging the system down, but couldn't find anything wrong. I rebooted just in case, but nothing changed. The system was still slow to respond to any command. So, last Thursday, in frustration, I decided to turn the computer off, thinking of doing more tests later. When I turned it on again on Good Friday afternoon, it refused to boot. I tried several time and all I was getting was the Apple logo, the spinning wheel, the fan was starting to run like crazy after a while, and sometime ending up with a kernel panic (the multilingual screen of death). My computer was dead! I was busy and there was nothing much I could do, so I left it alone.

Finally, Sunday I had a little spare time (it was Easter, my wife was working and the big family dinner would not happen before next week) so I decided to do some tests. I succeeded to boot the iMac with the Leopard install disk. It could be either some corruption in the OS software or some problem with the hard drive. First, I checked the drive with Disk Utility. I thought that doing some repair on the disk would probably solved the problem. Wrong! Disk Utility gives me right away a “Fatal Hardware Error” on the drive. Bad news... So the drive is dead. It is confirmed by the Apple Hardware Test that gives an error code on the SATA bus. Now I know what to do to resuscitate my iMac (which is quite appropriate on Easter!) Unfortunately, all repair shops and computer stores are closed until Monday. It leaves me some time to do a little thinking. My AppleCare warranty has already expired in December, so bringing it to the repair shop will probably be quite costly. On the other hand, the hard drive on this model is still easily accessible so I could simply purchase a new drive and install it myself. If it doesn't work I could still bring it to the repair shop. So I download the “how-to” instructions from Apple website, check my iMac specs to make sure which drive I need and go to Microbytes to purchase a new (twice bigger) hard drive. It takes fifteen minutes to install the new drive, reboot with the Leopard install disk and reformat the drive. Now comes the big test for Time Machine. It takes a couple of hours to restore the iMac with the Time Machine backup, but it finally reboot and looks like nothing ever happened! Alleluia Time Machine!

I've never seen a backup system so easy to use! If you have a Mac and are running Leopard, the safest thing to do is to make sure that Time Machine is on. You never know when you'll need it.

A Muslim and an Otaku enter a bar...

Do you know the joke where a shiite Muslim and an Otaku enter a bar?

Me neither.

But I can tell you for sure that, whichever reason the muslim entered the bar or whatever the anime fan told him, it will always end badly. The shiite will always hit the fan!

Best wishes for 2008

Sorry, I've not blogged much since last fall. I've been so busy with work, trying to keep the magazine on schedule, attending NYAF, etc.

I'll do my best to resume blogging regularly as soon as possible. I really have to organize by time better and to go out more often. Lately, going out was mostly putting the garbages on the sidewalk! I wish I could see more people. Not easy when I am chained to my computer...

In the meantime, I wish you all the best for 2008!

New Valerian Trailer

Time Jam, the animation (co-produced with the Japanese studio Satelight) based on the French comics “Valerian & Laureline, Agents Spatio-Temporel”, has been once again delayed but a new trailer is available.

Version Française:



English Version:

Worldcon in Montreal in 2009!

Incredible but true: In 2009 the WorldCon will be in Montreal!

Following the vote of the fans attending the 65th International Science-Fiction Convention held at Yokohama, Japan, on the first week-end of September, Montreal has been chosen as the host of the convention in 2009 by only 166 votes.

I attended only two WorldCon before: Boston in '89 and Winnipeg in '94 (I missed Toronto in 2003 and Boston in '04 because I was too busy with work -- now that's in Montreal, I will not miss it for sure). In 2008, it will be in Denver (too far for me to attend).

Links: WorldCon, Anticipation / Montreal 2009.

Apple TV

I have been using the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) to view video files for a couple of years and I like it very much since it is offering a great variety of settings -- but lately I've been having problem running hi-def video and mkv format. I guess we are slowly approaching the processing limits of the Xbox (unless the XBMC migrates to the 360). Therefore, I started looking for a replacement. The new Apple TV seemed to be a suitable candidate.

I've now been owning an Apple TV (the 40 Gb hard drive model) for less than a month and so far I am relatively satisfied with it. It looks very nice, play video well and offers a few bonuses (streaming photos, music, podcast, and youTube videos). You can either stream your videos to the ATV or synch them to store them locally. It is full of potential. Unfortunately, for now, there are three area where it is very limited. I guess it is a work in progress.

First, it plays only three video format: .mp4, .m4v and .mov (but the latter under very limited conditions; I've not figured out yet what make some .mov work and some not). However, you can use Quicktime or other video converters to convert almost any format into .m4v. I mostly watch .avi (plus a few .mkv) and didn't have any problems converting them, but it is a time consuming process (depending of the video format -- .avi seems faster to convert-- and the computer used to process the file, it can take from 30 min. (on my new iMac Intel 2.4 Ghz) to over ten hours (on my iMac G5 1.8 Ghz) to convert an half-hour episode). [UPDATE: It even converts the .srt files for the subtitles!]

Second, it is made to work only with a widescreen HDTV. I was able to plug the ATV to my old standard TV with an expensive component video cable and setting the ATV's resolution to 480i, but I am nevertheless losing some parts of the picture on each side. The XBMC has the advantage of offering various screen formats.

Third, you can only stream or synch your videos (or photos, music, etc) through iTunes, while with XBMC you can stream them from any of your computer drives.

Of course, most of those problems (save the TV resolution) can be solved with a hack. But while you crack open the XB only with a software, in the case of the ATV, you have to physically crack open the box and remove the hard drive in order to install new softwares that extend the ATV capabilities, like enabling SSH (Secure Shell, a network protocol allowing to communicate with the ATV and exchange data, therefore being able to install new softwares without having to remove the drive anymore), adding a file browser (ATVfiles), an external hard drive, play any video codec (through Perian) or even running the full OS X! But I am not encline to void the warranty of my expensive ATV -- yet. And all this “work under the hood” is rather complicated to perform. Many people suggested that the best way (although even more expensive) to replace the XBMC would be to buy a Mac Mini and use Frontrow to watch video. It has the advantage of being a fully fonctional computer.

However, I am not ready to give up on the ATV. As I said, it has much potential. Here are the improvements I would like to see in the future:

• Apple should open the Apple TV to developpers. If the ATV could play all video codecs straight out of the box and if it had the ability to run small application (the YouTube player is a start), then it would be, officially -- not in a hacked way, a more powerful media center than the XBMC.

• Adding a Gigabite ethernet (like Apple recently did for the Airport Extreme) would also be nice. Even with the standard 10/100 ethernet cable it is much faster to stream or synch than doing it wireless.

• Adding a radio tuner (either iTunes or ShoutCast). I really don't understand why ATV doesn't give access to the iTunes radio stations!

• A CATV tuner and PVR capability (but I already have the cable box/PVR for that -- so maybe the ability to take content from the cable box/PVR) would be interesting

• Ability to buy or rent content on the internet directly from the ATV. In fact, in Canada, we cannot even download TV shows or movies from the iTunes store, so for us the ATV--as it is right now--is pretty useless. I wonder why they even bother to sell it. So, first, let's hope that the Canadian iTunes store will soon offer TV or movie videos for sales.

• a fan (because the ATV is REALLY getting hot quickly)

• a switch off (I never understood this idea of building appliance without a switch off).

With those improvements, the Apple TV would be a great video appliance for an entertainment room and I would really enjoy it. However, for now, I cannot recommend it to movie & anime fans as a XBMC replacement.

For more information on the Apple TV, see this collection of Apple TV resources.

Apple to open their Canadian flag-store in Montreal

According to AppleInsider, Apple is planning to open a multi-story store on Ste-Catherine street West for Summer or early Fall 2008. They would heavily renovate (in the hip way that Apple's stores are known for: with lots of glass and aluminum) the MENS building (1321 Ste Catherine W) near De La Montagne street (see pictures). Work should start this winter.

That's a great news, since downtown Montreal has been lacking a decent Mac-friendly store since the demise of Bmac several years ago. It's even getting difficult to find a decent computer store (besides the big chains like Staples, Future Shop or The Source). I even noticed this week that the CompuSmart on Square Philips had disappeared -- but at the same time I discovered that there was a tiny Micro-Boutique on the fourth floor of the Eaton Center. There's also MicroBytes that is good for accessories and peripherals. The best specialized stores are now mostly online (what about touching & physically checking the product before buying?). So, there's nothing like a big, real Apple Store. One opened earlier this year at the Carrefour Laval, but it's relatively small (I was rather disappointed when I visited). Apparently, the new downtown Apple store will be 9,300 square feet, a bit smaller than the Manhattan store!

New iMacs!

Also today, Apple finally announced the new iMac models!

The new look of the iMac is made of aluminum and glass. The 17-inch models are eliminated and replace by a low-end 20-inch (2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 Gb memory, 250 Gb HD, $1,199.00 US / $1,299.00 Can) and both the 20-inch (2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 Gb memory, 320 Gb HD, $1,499.00 US / $1,599.00 Can) and 24-inch (2.4 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 Gb memory, 320 Gb HD, $1,799.00 US / $1,899.00 Can) models are quite improved for the same price they were before! Finally, a new high-performence 24-inch model is added (2.8 Ghz Intel Core 2 Extreme, 2 Gb memory, 500 Gb HD, $2,299.00 US / $2,449.00 Can). All models includes a new, slimmer, keyboard and are available now. Wow!

Apple also launched iLife '08 and iWork '08, upgraded the Mac Mini and boosted .Mac (with .Mac Gallery and 10 Gb of storage!). It was a great day for Apple fans. The next step will be the release of the Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) later this fall...

I have been waiting for this day all year long. I was planning to upgrade my old iMac G5 (1.8 Ghz, 1 Gb of memory, 150 Gb HD) for an Intel earlier this year when rumors of new iMac models started circulating, so I decided to wait. Despite the great news, choosing the right model was an agonizing process. I was really tempted by a 24-inch that runs faster, but I unfortunately had to manage my wallet, so I reluctantly went for the bigger 20-inch (but I boosted its memory to 2 Gb -- I also took the opportunity to order Parallel, an EyeTV 250 and an Apple TV). Now I can't wait to receive that baby!