A new "marketplace" opened up a few months ago, on the big island of Hawaii. It is called the queens marketplace, and, although designed to be cheaper than it's counterpart, the kings shops, seems almost completely devoted to selling useless trinkets. The only thing that makes the building's existance worthwhile, is an Arby's, which serves Bacon Beef n' Cheddar sammiches, and Tropicana Twister sodas. The worst thing about souveniers, is that they are synonimous with the tourist culture, and the tourist culture is synonimous with disconnect from reality. Take Victoria, Canada. Its streets are lined with stores selling shirts with mooses and the word "Eh" on them, yet while in Canada, I never once heard someone say eh, or saw a moose. Does that mean people don't say "eh" in Canada? Of course they do, but there is a lot more to Canada than a vacant statement of the word "eh", and the animal population of Canada is far more diverse than lots and lots of moose. It's the same thing in Hawaii. A hula dancing clock, absently swaying its hips, or a shirt saying "Look how much Hawaiian people eat, ha ha ha" are completely pointless. The Honolulu international marketplace seems devoted completely to selling necklaces, but I never saw anyone wearing one like the type sold by the thousands. Indeed, if you were to dig up some dirt from every place you ever went to, it would probably be much more meaningful than collecting a handful of crappy plastic racial steriotypes. In the past, my need to buy things has seduced me into buying souveniers that I will not ever use and promptly will lose or destroy. However, when next I go on a trip, I vow not to buy the things that don't actually represent the place, but represent what that place is supposed to represent.
More Samurai Jack reviews coming soon.
Author
- Kieran Pertnav
- Hawaii, United States
- I'm Kieran. I live in Hawaii. I like to watch movies a lot and I make them too. I also play around with flash animation, so you'll see a lot of that in my blog.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Samurai Jack Episode VII Review
Season: 1
Storyboarded and Written by: Mark and Brian Andrews
Plot: Jack attempts to conquer a tower guarded by three blind archers in order to use the magic well at the top to go back in time.
Score: 8.5
Review: This is a hint of things to come. This episode features great action, as well as the Samurai Jack staple of emotional connection to the dynamic battles without much dialouge. It begins with an action scene not featuring Jack, however, once Jack is brought into the plot, it falls victim to the number one season 1 fault: The pacing suddenly lags, with a rather long lead up to Jack's battle. However, once started, the action is exhillarating and the end will leave the viewer in awe. This is unquestionably the best episode of the first season.
Storyboarded and Written by: Mark and Brian Andrews
Plot: Jack attempts to conquer a tower guarded by three blind archers in order to use the magic well at the top to go back in time.
Score: 8.5
Review: This is a hint of things to come. This episode features great action, as well as the Samurai Jack staple of emotional connection to the dynamic battles without much dialouge. It begins with an action scene not featuring Jack, however, once Jack is brought into the plot, it falls victim to the number one season 1 fault: The pacing suddenly lags, with a rather long lead up to Jack's battle. However, once started, the action is exhillarating and the end will leave the viewer in awe. This is unquestionably the best episode of the first season.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Samurai Jack Episode VI Review
Season: 1
Storyboarded and Written by Genndy Tartakovsky...I think
Plot: The basic "Jack teams up with" plot-with a twist.
Score: 7.7
Review: Although the pacing still isn't right, it's better. It begins and ends with an action scene, however, the montage in the middle is very long and seems to be mostly filler. Although it is a step in the right direction, it still doesn't compare to episodes in later seasons.
Storyboarded and Written by Genndy Tartakovsky...I think
Plot: The basic "Jack teams up with" plot-with a twist.
Score: 7.7
Review: Although the pacing still isn't right, it's better. It begins and ends with an action scene, however, the montage in the middle is very long and seems to be mostly filler. Although it is a step in the right direction, it still doesn't compare to episodes in later seasons.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Samurai Jack Episode V Review
Season: 1
Score: 5.4
Plot: Jack teams up with some scientists to... yeah, it's the Jack teams up with blank to free the blank, and get him information and/or a way back in time.
Review: There are a bunch of episodes like this in the first season, and a few in the second, which follow this same basic plot. They are often slow paced, like this one. The pacing in this one is extremely slow and it is a fairly dull episode.
Score: 5.4
Plot: Jack teams up with some scientists to... yeah, it's the Jack teams up with blank to free the blank, and get him information and/or a way back in time.
Review: There are a bunch of episodes like this in the first season, and a few in the second, which follow this same basic plot. They are often slow paced, like this one. The pacing in this one is extremely slow and it is a fairly dull episode.
Samurai Jack Episode IV Review
Season: 1
Storyboarded and Written By: Chris Reccardi and Chris Savino
Plot: Jack tries to free the race of the Woolies
Score: 7.5
Review: The best part of this episode is the race of short people with spears and space suits who talk in a monotone and whose names I can't spell. They earned the .5 in this episode's score. The rest of the episode is a fairly basic story about Jack freeing an advanced race of creatures who look like woolie mammoths (Hence the name "Woolies") from the group of monotone men who came from the sky with technology and spears and enslaved the woolies and forced them to write TV reviews with horrendous, multi-line, never terminating runon sentences!
Storyboarded and Written By: Chris Reccardi and Chris Savino
Plot: Jack tries to free the race of the Woolies
Score: 7.5
Review: The best part of this episode is the race of short people with spears and space suits who talk in a monotone and whose names I can't spell. They earned the .5 in this episode's score. The rest of the episode is a fairly basic story about Jack freeing an advanced race of creatures who look like woolie mammoths (Hence the name "Woolies") from the group of monotone men who came from the sky with technology and spears and enslaved the woolies and forced them to write TV reviews with horrendous, multi-line, never terminating runon sentences!
Samurai Jack Episode III Review
Season: 1
Storyboarded and Written By: Paul Rudish and Genndy Tartakovsky
Plot: Jack helps archeologist dogs fight Aku
Score: 6.5
Review: This episode features talking dogs with British accents, and Jack cutting robots in half. Enough said.
Storyboarded and Written By: Paul Rudish and Genndy Tartakovsky
Plot: Jack helps archeologist dogs fight Aku
Score: 6.5
Review: This episode features talking dogs with British accents, and Jack cutting robots in half. Enough said.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Samurai Jack- Episode II Review
Storyboarded and Written by- Paul Rudish and Genndy Tartakovsky
Plot: Jack begins his adventure in the future and "earns" his name.
Score: 6
Review: This is one of the most unfocused Jack episodes, which seems to be completely focused on how confusing Jack finds the future, and what a horribly warped future it is. It is full of strange aliens, and has the largest population of imaginitive creatures in the whole series. However, it is mainly a transition episode, which helps the show shift gears and operate in the future as well as the past.
Plot: Jack begins his adventure in the future and "earns" his name.
Score: 6
Review: This is one of the most unfocused Jack episodes, which seems to be completely focused on how confusing Jack finds the future, and what a horribly warped future it is. It is full of strange aliens, and has the largest population of imaginitive creatures in the whole series. However, it is mainly a transition episode, which helps the show shift gears and operate in the future as well as the past.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Samurai Jack- Episode I Review
Season: 1
Storyboarded and Written By: Paul Rudish and Genndy Tartakovsky
Plot: Aku rises again and Jack is trained to fight him
Score: 8.1
Review: The first episode of Samurai Jack is a beautiful, "art gallery" episode. Although there is fun action at the beginning and end, the main body of the episode is a dialouge-free montage of young Jack's training. As usual for this type of episode, the art is entrancing enough to carry the episode, and it is easy to just stare at the screen and watch Jack travel through worlds and training. It is an enjoyable start to the series.
Storyboarded and Written By: Paul Rudish and Genndy Tartakovsky
Plot: Aku rises again and Jack is trained to fight him
Score: 8.1
Review: The first episode of Samurai Jack is a beautiful, "art gallery" episode. Although there is fun action at the beginning and end, the main body of the episode is a dialouge-free montage of young Jack's training. As usual for this type of episode, the art is entrancing enough to carry the episode, and it is easy to just stare at the screen and watch Jack travel through worlds and training. It is an enjoyable start to the series.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
R.I.W Daily Cynicisms
Rest in war Daily Cynicysms posts. These posts are a huge failure. After one day, there wqas a missed post. And the second post is just about how I missed a day. Instead, my latest series of posts will be an episode guide to Samurai Jack, including reviews, brief summaries and select credits on all 52 episodes. Yeah, like that will ever happen. But I will try. I'll be starting with season 1 tommorow, so stay tuned all my nonexistent readers!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Daily Cynicysms #1
Since I've missed so many posts and made so many crappy ones, I'm putting together a 7 day back-to-back series of cynical remarks to give the blog some substance.
Human beings are naturally bad.
Human beings are naturally bad.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Something
I ate pizza last night, it was good and something n' stuff. Man, this blog has really gone downhill.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Invader Zim: The Complete Invasion, Review
Score 8.9 out of 10. Invader Zim was a great, if inconsistent series. There are some truly hillarious episodes on this set, which make it worth owning, and many that are just O.K. There was only one episode that bored me, and I'm sure it has it's fans.
Here are the best episodes, in kind of an order of how good they are: (note, these are rated by being funny, which is when Zim is best, action oriented episodes are also present, but not as good)
The Nightmare Begins
Zim Eats Waffles
Walk for Your Lives
Parent Teacher Night
Bestest Friend
Tak, the Hideous New Girl
In addition, here are some kinda funny episodes that are not as hillarious.
Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom
A Room With a Moose
Door to Door
The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot
Abducted
Future Dib
The rest are just O.K, but the really good episodes, when watched back to back, can have you dying with laughter, which are enough to make this set more than worthwhile.
For extras, you get a crapload of commentaries featuring various people from the show talking over each other about the show in general and, occasionally, the episode you are watching. For some reason, these commentary tracks are accesed from the audio menu. There are animatics, which you can watch if you are an animation geek or have a crapload of time on your hands. It also comes with the most pointless special feature ever: Irken subtitles. Spelled in the native language of Zim's race, they are little more than a stream of gibberish at the bottom of the screen. The only real special features are a series of three interviews with the voice cast, writers, and production staff respectively. The interviews are good, but creator/writer/head writer/executive producer Jhonen Vasquez, and Producer/Director Steve Ressel are noticably missing.
Show Score: 9.2 out of 10
Extras Score: 7 out of 10
Overall:8.9 out of 10
Here are the best episodes, in kind of an order of how good they are: (note, these are rated by being funny, which is when Zim is best, action oriented episodes are also present, but not as good)
The Nightmare Begins
Zim Eats Waffles
Walk for Your Lives
Parent Teacher Night
Bestest Friend
Tak, the Hideous New Girl
In addition, here are some kinda funny episodes that are not as hillarious.
Dib's Wonderful Life of Doom
A Room With a Moose
Door to Door
The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot
Abducted
Future Dib
The rest are just O.K, but the really good episodes, when watched back to back, can have you dying with laughter, which are enough to make this set more than worthwhile.
For extras, you get a crapload of commentaries featuring various people from the show talking over each other about the show in general and, occasionally, the episode you are watching. For some reason, these commentary tracks are accesed from the audio menu. There are animatics, which you can watch if you are an animation geek or have a crapload of time on your hands. It also comes with the most pointless special feature ever: Irken subtitles. Spelled in the native language of Zim's race, they are little more than a stream of gibberish at the bottom of the screen. The only real special features are a series of three interviews with the voice cast, writers, and production staff respectively. The interviews are good, but creator/writer/head writer/executive producer Jhonen Vasquez, and Producer/Director Steve Ressel are noticably missing.
Show Score: 9.2 out of 10
Extras Score: 7 out of 10
Overall:8.9 out of 10
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Iron Man's Blatantly Obvious Agenda
Often, movies have thinly disguiesed propoganda. Sometimes, they have undisguised propoganda. But if you look at Iron Man, the agenda is apparent even in the trailer. Take a look and see if you can spot some pro-war influences. Believe me, they're not hard to find.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Posts for Wednesday and Today
Wednesday Post: It is currently Wednesday
Today's Post: It is now today/
Today's Post: It is now today/
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Cartoon Coverage, but No Election Coverage
Commenting on the election will be to cliche for this blog! I've decided to save my election coverage for 2009! In the mean time, in addition to super tuesday coverage I saw a new episode of Chowder: The Puckerberry Overloards/The Emelons. It was O.K. I don't know, I'm just not up to posting much today. Mabey I'm too worried that a republican will become president. OOps...sorry!
Monday, February 4, 2008
New Post: The Sicko Review is Finally Here! Score: 8.7 out of 10
People love and hate Micheal Moore, but I'm not sure if I belong to either party. His films are definately well made, touching and funny, and the "Let's change the World" acts are, as always, funny and practical. However, he is decidedly one sided. Moore makes such a convincing case for his side that it makes me want to hear the other side of the story and see if it is as smart, funny, and convincing as his. I had a hard time thinking what to rate this movie, as while I definately agree strongly wit many of the ideas, Moore's opinion is so overwhelming that I don't know how to agree, and I thought about dropping the score for that. However, as a film, this is his best made, if not his funniest yet. And so the rating stands, and after almost a month, the review is done.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Jack Black Sells Kung-Fu Panda
Notice how Jack Black uses his crazy energy to fool you into thinking that you're watching something funny, even though over the course of the video, nothing funny happens.
The Speed Racer Trailer- So Wierd I Don't Know What to Think
Here it is, the new Speed Racer movie, and for once in my life, after watching this trailer, I didn't know what to think.
Try adapting an anmated show that is now almost 50 years old to be a slick movie, but at the same time use the same character personalitys, and gags that were used around 48 years ago. Then blend that with tons of special effects and the Wachowski Bros. Either way you look at it, it's going to be wierd.
Try adapting an anmated show that is now almost 50 years old to be a slick movie, but at the same time use the same character personalitys, and gags that were used around 48 years ago. Then blend that with tons of special effects and the Wachowski Bros. Either way you look at it, it's going to be wierd.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Sick Leave
I've missed several posts due to being sick. More interesting stuff after I stop being sick.
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