5 Razors

Samurai Jack – Episode XIV: Jack Learns to Jump Good

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Samurai Jack – Episode XIV: Jack Learns to Jump Good
  • wiki: link

Episode XIV: Jack Learns to Jump Good television review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to the adventures of the time-displaced samurai and his quest to make his way home. The first episode of Samurai Jack‘s Second Season is one of my favorites. After being denied access to a time portal by Aku (Mako) in the opening moments, a despondent Jack (Phil LaMarr) continues his wandering through the woods where he meets some new friends in a peaceful monkey tribe and the human (Jeff Bennett) raised by them. Jack’s new friends have a remarkable ability to jump good but they are defenseless against a more brutal tribe of apes that steal their food. In exchange for teaching them to defend themselves, the White Ape Tribe teach Jack how to “jump good.”

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Supergirl – The House of L

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Supergirl – The House of L
  • wiki: link

Supergirl - The House of L television review

Supergirl has consistently been the best of The CW’s super-hero shows for awhile now. And now it has a villain equal to its hero. After a short sequence showing Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) fight off Supergirl (Melissa Benoist), the rest of the episode features extended flashbacks from the day Lex was sent to prison to the present. Devious, manipulative, and willing to go to great lengths to get what he wants, “The House of L” reveals Lex’s relationship to the “other” Supergirl that we saw show up in Kaznia at the end of last year along with highlighting the various plans and manipulations he’s pulled off from a prison cell planning for this day. Although we get very little of Kara Danvers in this episode, Melissa Benoist is prominently featured as the show finally offers a true introduction to the Red Daughter.

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The Great Films – Unbreakable

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Unbreakable
  • IMDb: link

“They say this one has a surprise ending.”

Unbreakable movie reviewToday’s Throwback Thursday post takes us back to one of my favorite super-hero movies. Overshadowed by writer/director M. Night Shyamalan‘s far more commercially successful first film and his subsequent slide into mediocrity, Unbreakable stands alone as the one film from his catalog that gets better with each subsequent viewing. A perfect origin story, Unbreakable is a super-hero film without any of the trappings of super-hero films. A low-key, slow-paced drama, the story slowly unfolds while staying true to the basic truths of comic book storytelling. If there’s an anti-Batman and Robin, it’s Unbreakable.

The film has everything going for it including a writer who understood his subject manner, stars perfectly cast as real-life comic book characters, a terrific humor, and some of the best shot scenes of any film from this decade by Eduardo Serra whose framing choices help mold and develop each character climaxing in the traditional birth of a hero that remains grounded in reality more than any super-hero movie before or since. It’s a perfect storm that results in an amazing film that holds up as well today as when it was released more than 18 years ago.

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BlacKkKlansman

/ / Home Video
  • Title: BlacKkKlansman
  • IMDb: link

BlacKkKlansman Blu-ray reviewBased on the insane true story of African-American Colorado Springs police officer Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) infiltrating the Klu Klux Klan, Spike Lee delivers one of the most fascinating and entertaining films of the year. Laugh-out-loud funny while also proving timely and relevant to today, Lee crafts an amazing film structured around the performances of John David Washington and Adam Driver as the Black and Jewish cops who performed something so miraculous that, if it hadn’t happened, Hollywood would have been forced to invent it. As a cherry on top, Topher Grace gives us his hilarious take on Grand Wizard David Duke whose white supremacist organization becomes the target of Stallworth’s investigation.

Lee and company provide a near-perfect film that holds up to multiple viewings. Available on Blu-ray and DVD, extras include a short featurette and an extended trailer for the film featuring Prince‘s “Mary Don’t You Weep.”

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Samurai Jack – Episode XIII: Aku’s Fairy Tales

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Samurai Jack – Episode XIII: Aku’s Fairy Tales
  • wiki: link

Samurai Jack - Episode XIII: Aku's Fairy Tales TV review

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the adventures of the time-displaced samurai and his quest to make his way home. The First Season finale of Samurai Jack is an unusual episode as it is presented entirely from the perspective of the show’s villain, Aku (Mako). Frustrated with the growing hero worship for Jack (Phil LaMarr), Aku gathers children together and tells them a series of fairy tales in an attempt to present himself as the hero and paint the samurai as the villain.

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