More dramatic footage of the tsunami coming in. There’s one building that the water goes up against, and then through, and then, in a matter of about 10 seconds since the wave hit, the building is gone.
Includes some of the above, and a lot more besides, off Japanese TV:
Before and After aerial footage:
Helicopter rescue footage:
The tsunami even caught the Japanese Air Force unaware, which a number of (I think) F-16s picked up and carried into buildings or soaked with mud:
Interesting video from 2010 explaining Japanese preparation for earthquakes and tsunamis:
Stratfor is reporting that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant “appears” to have melted down. I have not seen confirmation of this elsewhere. Even if true, it does not mean there has been a core breach, much less a containment breach. And the Christian Science Monitor is saying otherwise.
Up-close footage of the tsunami coming into the city I haven’t seen before:
Close footage of the tsunami surge moving into a city:
More close tsunami footage:
More Sendai aftermath footage:
Some cognitive dissonance in this Russia Today video: The footage is mainly the burning natural gas plant, while the voiceover discusses the nuclear plant failsafe issues:
More burning natural gas footage, along with a discussion of other nation’s tsunami preparations:
For other videos I’ve put up from the earthquake/tsunami, start here or just go scrolling back through the videos I’ve put up the last couple of days.
Howard Waldrop and I have to review Battle: Los Angeles for Locus Online, so between that and my usual Saturday obligations, I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do too many more updates today.
Some more news tidbits on the Sendai earthquake/tsunami.
Evidently the possibility of a nuclear meltdown has been greatly reduced, with a backup cooling system now online. Early reports (from Hillary Clinton, no less) that U.S. armed forces flew emergency coolant to the plant appear to have been in error.
I’m still hearing casualty figures in the 1,000 range, but not significantly higher. Japan’s strict building code and high quality engineering probably saved, at a minimum, tens of thousands of lives.
Death toll is now estimated at 1,000. Let’s hope that wrong (like the early reports out of Katrina), but looking at footage of the debris wall the tsunami swept in, it might not be.
Phone lines down, trains down, subways down, two runways at Narita open.
The quake hit at 2:46 p.m local time about 230 miles off the coast of northern Japan near Sendai. A Wikipedia entry is already up, and they’re calling it the largest earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history. It looks pretty bad, although thankfully not “sink into the sea” bad.
But it looks bad enough:
This CNN story also has embedded footage of the tsunami coming inland carrying debris, boats and burning houses with it.
This NNK report is saying the tsunami waves were 10 meters high.
Compilation of live quake footage:
Here’s footage of the tsunami inundating a Japanese airport:
If there’s one comfort in this, Japan is very good at earthquake and tsunami preparation. If something this big hit, say, Haiti, just about everything on the island would be gone.
Last year when Howard Waldrop and I reviewed The Wolfman (executive summary: don’t waste your time), I offered up a list of other werewolf films that would be more worthy of viewing. Two of those, Ginger Snaps and Kibakichi, were films I hadn’t seen when I wrote that. I’ve now managed to see both, and can offer up judgment: Ginger Snaps is well worth seeing, but Kibakichi isn’t.
Ginger Snaps tells the story of the two Fitzgerald sisters, one (Ginger) hot, goth-y and redheaded, the other (Brigitte) dark and mousy, who go through their rebellious outsider phase by snapping artfully staged photographs of the other’s fake suicides, smoking, fighting with the stuck-up girls in field hockey, and generally behaving like teenage girls. Unfortunately for them, mutilated dogs have been showing up all around their neighborhood, and a late night encounter with what’s been killing them in a park leaves Ginger with wounds that heal entirely too quickly, newly grown patches of hair, a sudden taste for fresh blood, and the beginnings of a tail. And did I mention that the werewolf attack falls on the same day she get her first period?
Om Nom Nom
This is a very solid film with good acting, a clever script and firm direction. It can be enjoyed either as a straight werewolf film, or an extended (and unsettling) metaphor on the wrenching changes puberty inflicts upon the female body. (The film garnered a lot of comparisons with Carrie when it first came out.) Of werewolf films of recent memory, I would have to count this second only to Dog Soldiers.
Also, Katharine Isabelle looks really, really good just before she goes all four-legged.
On the other hand, Kibakichi is one of those films where all the best scenes are in the trailer. You would think that a Japanese film with werewolves, demons, samurai and Gatling guns would rock, but unfortunately Kibakichi has the quality of an exploitation film and the pace of a lush period drama, which is exactly the opposite of what you should be aiming for. The special effects range from the passable (they’ve mastered the art of copious geysers of blood) to the laughable, including one scene where the ghosts (demons? demon ghosts?) rip apart a gambler and its obvious that the attacking creatures are puppets on strings. (And at one point the titular protagonist is menaced by what look like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except not nearly as convincing.) Plus the werewolf transformation scenes are sub-par. While not unremittingly awful, even gorehounds and Asian horror fans are likely to find it disappointing. It also has possibly the worst dubbing I’ve ever seen in a film.
I have friends who collect Criterion DVDs. However, even they, I think, will be hard-pressed to pick up Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films. With a whopping 50 films (and an even-more whopping price tag of $772 through Amazon), you get a lot of classic films (The Seven Samurai, Kind Hearts and Coronets, M), so I suppose it would be a good deal if you planned on picking up all of them anyway. Until I stumbled across this, I never realized Janus FIlms distributed so much of what we regard as the essential “art house” films of the 20th Century. If they had never existed, would only hardcore film buffs know of these films, or would a we revere a completely different set of art house films that are currently obscure?
I was also fiddling with Amazon’s Carousel widget, so here it is with a bunch of other DVD sets:
Although this box set is nearly four years old, I stumbled across it when looking for information on Hausu, which looks to be a completely insane Japanese haunted house movie that’s also distributed by Janus Films. Just take a gander at this off-the-charts, blood-and-weirdness packed trailer.
I’m given to understand that, later on, one of them gets eaten by a piano.
Just what the title says, and quite fascinating. For all the urban bustle, many parts if rural Japan are turning into ghost towns, driven by the relentless population decline and aging demographics.
In 2010, Japan is the oldest society that has ever existed in the history of humanity on the planet, and will remain so, not remotely challenged, for several decades at least.
