Word: samurais
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...reviews," McWeeny avers. But they are already pretty sweet. In his last five columns, he reviewed five films, a TV cartoon and a website. The verdicts: six raves ("Ocean?s Eleven," the "American Werewolf in London site, "The Others," "El Celo," "Heart of the Warrior" and TV?s "Samurai Jack") and one fave (a few reservations within a positive review of "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back"). Last Christmas of seven new films, he adored five, was mixed on one and hated the highly touted "Before Night Falls." ("Somebody," he wrote, "owes me a freakin? apology...
Even good TV animation today is about doing more with less: less movement, less texture, less detail, as in the minimalist Powerpuff Girls, with its static figures "flying" against a pulsing background. If Samurai Jack (Cartoon Network, debuts Aug. 10, 7 p.m. E.T., then Mondays, 8 p.m. E.T.) looks like no other cartoon on TV, that's because it's maximalist with a capital MAX. Richly textured backgrounds, constant visual surprises, a thrilling music score--this 'toon gives you your cable bill's worth...
...plot is strictly B movie: a young samurai is teleported by the evil wizard Aku to the distant future. So is the dialogue ("With the power of this sword, I will vanquish Aku!"). But even nonaction fans will be wowed by the art. Creator Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory) raids the history of illustration, art and cinema with the gusto of a kid playing in an attic. He gleefully cobbles past, present and future into a supercool fantasy of classical Japanese art, Hanna-Barbera, expressionism, anime, '60s film and '50s modernism, just for starters. (His dystopian future city looks like...
...Walking the ancient Nakasendo highway from Kyoto to Tokyo is a trip into a nation's past. As the reproduction notices suggest, travel along the mountain route was highly regulated and checkpoints dotted the road. Only feudal lords and their aristocratic assistants, the samurai, could use it. Women were forbidden to journey independently, and travelers who looked even slightly androgynous had to unbutton sometimes for inspection. Travelers were also required to stamp on a Christian cross. Hesitation meant instant decapitation...
...bankrupt Indonesia. And that assumes environment officials could get into the site. Victor Malonda, who heads the district mining office, recounts how he took 120 policemen and soldiers to the site a year ago to try to halt the mining. "We were chased away," he says despairingly. "They had samurai swords. We had to run for our lives...