Immortality… The quest to deny death has plagued mankind for as long as mankind has been around. Alchemists sought the means to create the fabled Philosopher’s Stone which would produce the elixir of life; brave explorers searched for the Fountain of Youth; cryogenics, while a staple of science fiction, is a service actually offered today (although hope in this method is in vain). Humanity wants to live forever; religion has instilled in us simultaneously a way to make peace with death and a reason to fear it.

Once upon a time I started my college career at a terrible little university located in a terrible little town in Idaho. Yes, Idaho. (I’ve gotten smarter since then.) Needless to say, there was not a whole lot to do – besides watch TV. Most nights were spent pathetically on the couch watching the various offerings of Adult Swim – “Futurama,” “Family Guy,” “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” etc. And then a new show was advertised, something curiously called “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” I watched the pilot episode.

What comes to mind when you think of the worst movies ever made? The films of Ed Wood certainly rank: there is “Bride of the Monster,” in which Bela Lugosi feeds his victims to an octopus puppet, or “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” where gravestones get easily knocked over and the flying saucers are UFOs on strings, or, my personal favorite, Wood’s bizarre pseudo-documentary on transvestitism, “Glen or Glenda.”

Anime fandom is something of an enigma to me. While there are examples of the genre that I very much admire – Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira” is an incredible film, and I don’t think I’ve seen anything by Hayao Miyazaki (“Spirited Away,” “Princess Mononoke”) that I haven’t enjoyed – I consider them to be just another set of foreign animated films, and I appreciate movies such as French director Sylvain Chomet’s “The Triplets of Belleville” on the same level.