Princess Mononoke

As a truly epic film, Hayao Miyazaki's PRINCESS MONONOKE has the advantage of immersing you within its world. Slowly establishing itself with demons, honor, warrior clans, and a few key characters, the film, which is almost two and a half hours long convinces its audience of a world where the old fights the new. It's the death of the spirit world, and the budding of the iron age. A wild boar runs into town, turned into a demon after being shot with an iron bullet. It is killed by Ashitaka, the most promising warrior in the village, but he is also cursed from touching the beast. As the curse takes over his body, Ashitaka searches the lands for the Forest Spirit who could replenish his life. Ashitaka stumbles across a war between the samurai, a clan of iron-makers, and the forest beasts. Among the forest beasts is Princess Mononoke, a human girl raised by wolves. This is key to Miyazaki's storytelling techniques, for he implants a human within a world that is supposed to be purely beasts, and beasts who hate humans at that. But by merging two supposedly differing groups, Miyazaki shows a universality that's only supported by every filmic decision he makes in his films. A final battle shows a mistake of the humans potentially costing the forest and their own iron-town. PRINCESS MONONOKE is just as beautifully furnished a movie as any other Miyazaki film, but here, things are on an epic scale, a grander scale that works.

★★★★ out of Five Stars

Oz: Season 1

A solid, creepy, and political show. Grizzly, but rewarding.
4 Stars out of 5

South Park Season 1

What the 1st season of "South Park" did was introduce lightly the satire that would become so much more prevalent in later seasons, but what is to be cherished about the early beginnings is the irreverent nature of the show mixed with some random, ridiculous humor to pull viewers in. Some of the episodes are choppy, but most have some really simple humor that comes across due to the voice acting of the creators.

Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown is a film by Quentin Tarantino--a man infatuated with certain genres of film like Blaxploitation. Tarantino has a practically encyclopedic knowledge of film, and his knowledge is not all exclusive to just that, for his skill as a director allows him to implicate certain aspects of blaxploitation within Jackie Brown. For the film, he uses Pam Grier (a star of the 70's blaxploitation films), who brings a great and real quality to the movie. She traffics coke and other illegal substances from Mexico as a flight attendant. Her boss is played by the unique Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson's character and his friend (Robert De Niro) laze about like the characters in the Coen Brother's Big Lebowski. They watch tv of girls with guns, and every once in a while get a nice thrill (like from the floozy played by Bridget Fonda). One day, Jackie (Grier) is picked up by the feds, and is prompted to give up her employers. However, she is so smart, that she outwits everyone, except, perhaps, a bail bondsman played by Robert Forster. Jackie Brown is based on a novel by the great Elmore Leonard. Thus, its storyline is defined, and the payoffs are quite worthwhile. The translation to screen works quite well too. It builds tension, it presents colorful Tarantinian characters with biting dialogue. If the film has a fault, it is that it is long. Other than that, it is well acted, has a nice flare, and it is well directed.
Jackie Brown: ✰✰✰1/2