06.26.03
The Cowboy Bebop Movie, which is known as Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door everywhere else on the planet, came out on video two days ago, and I had to add it to my collection. And don't worry, I saved up some extra money just so that I could make this purchase. Let's call it using some of the profit from selling the Bebop boxed set on eBay*. And while the critics in the Sun Times didn't seem to dig it -- get this, they called in implausible -- I liked it very much. In fact, I liked it so much that I'm going to share it with Erin and Willybean on Monday for the weekly dinner thing we do now, because they like Bebop like I like Bebop. In fact, while Erin lacks the array of music that is a significant part of the Bebop-verse, she does have interesting and strangely-translated picturebooks on the subject, which is almost as good.
*Once upon a time I used a small chunk of my tax return to purchase the Cowboy Bebop Perfect Sessions boxed set because it worked out to being about $35 less than buying the six dvds separately, and it came in a nice box with a soundtrack cd included. To my delight, I discovered that they were selling new on eBay six months later for 2 - 3 times what I paid for mine retail. So, I bought another copy of the CD, made sure all of the dvds were in good shape -- hell, I'd only watched them all one time through, and ordered a Chinese pirate version of the Perfect Sessions that came on 3 discs with a tri-fold cover instead of a six-disc box. Since the pirate turned out to be just as good as the original in my opinion**, so I turned around and sold the box set on eBay to some sucker for twice what I paid for it, ending up making back all the money I initially spent, getting a replacement set of dvds, and making around $50 pure profit.
**If I were watching it on a plasma television, with a Bang & Olufsen surround-sound system, I'm sure I'd be able to notice an appreciable difference in audio and video quality. However, on a regular stereo television, it seems just fine to me.
What's in your head?