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	<title>screensnark. &#187; Featured Columns</title>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: Avengers Assemble</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/07/05/animation-quick-look-avengers-assemble/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/07/05/animation-quick-look-avengers-assemble/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jul 2014 13:57:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[avengers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disney]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marvel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[western animation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1579</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to animation quick look. So I&#8217;ve talked before about Marvel Animation and it&#8217;s hit and miss history. While Disney buying Marvel has been a pretty good boon for them overall, it did essentially kill off the two best animated shows in Marvel history, Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth&#8217;s Mightiest Heroes, replacing them with their&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/07/05/animation-quick-look-avengers-assemble/">Animation Quick Look: Avengers Assemble</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to animation quick look. So I&#8217;ve talked before about Marvel Animation and it&#8217;s hit and miss history. While Disney buying Marvel has been a pretty good boon for them overall, it did essentially kill off the two best animated shows in Marvel history, Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth&#8217;s Mightiest Heroes, replacing them with their own takes on the characters.</p>
<p>Now, with Ultimate Spider-Man, that&#8217;s actually worked out ok so far. It&#8217;s not quite up there with it&#8217;s predecessor, but it&#8217;s a quality show that has a lot of fun fan service. Can the same be said of the new Avengers series, Avengers Assemble?</p>
<p>Sadly no, so that infuriates me quite a bit. Avengers Assemble ultimately feels a lot like the recent Spider-Man movies, where they feel like they had to do something with the property and it&#8217;s just treading way too familiar ground. The team faces the exact same issues (and occasionally the same villains doing the same or similar things). Thor and Hulk don&#8217;t get along and beat the crap out of each other? Check. Cap feels like a man out of time even though he&#8217;s been around a few years and always seem quick to pick up on things? Check. Hawkeye&#8217;s a giant asshole? Check. Iron Man doubting himself, but not to the point of alcoholism because it&#8217;s a kid&#8217;s show? Fucking check.</p>
<p>Probably the worst thing about Avengers Assemble is how it seems to exist in it&#8217;s own continuity from everything else despite the fact that it was essentially made to capitalize on the movies, because it has very little in common with them. Ultimate Spider-Man pretty much exists in the Marvel movie continuity. Agent Coulson is his fucking principal. It&#8217;s silly, but it works as fun jokes and fan service and is consistent with the movie universe they have spent so much time carefully setting up. There is none of that in Avengers Assemble, and the prime example is just staring in your face the whole goddamn time in the new token black character on the team, Falcon (Black Panther is nowhere to be found).</p>
<p>Now I have nothing against Falcon, he was great in Winter Soldier. And if Disney/Marvel wanted to make THAT Falcon part of the team, cool. But the Falcon on Avengers Assemble is nowhere close. Not just in how he acts, he&#8217;s literally a different person. Younger, a rookie and in Stark&#8217;s employ. What the hell is the point of that? At the end of the day, Avengers Assemble isn&#8217;t terrible, but it feels like such a retread and is completely pointless and that might actually be worse.</p>
<p>Final Rating: 2/5-Avengers</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/07/05/animation-quick-look-avengers-assemble/">Animation Quick Look: Avengers Assemble</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: Mother Up</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/19/animation-quick-look-mother/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/19/animation-quick-look-mother/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:37:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Animation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hulu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mother up]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1565</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to animation quick look. This installment is a little early as I am going out of town for a bit and don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ll be able to watch anything and post while I&#8217;m gone. If that&#8217;s the case, look for the next post in the first week of July. Anyways, Mother Up is&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/19/animation-quick-look-mother/">Animation Quick Look: Mother Up</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to animation quick look. This installment is a little early as I am going out of town for a bit and don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ll be able to watch anything and post while I&#8217;m gone. If that&#8217;s the case, look for the next post in the first week of July.</p>
<p>Anyways, Mother Up is the story of Rudi. A powerful, no-nonsense music executive who&#8217;s got it all. That is, until a scandal gets her fired from her profile job and black listed in the industry. Now she&#8217;s stuck in suburbia with her two kids, who she has no idea how to raise as some nanny whose name she can&#8217;t even remember did that before.</p>
<p>And if Mother Up was a fresh look from the female perspective of a formerly corporate mom trying suddenly trying to raise her kids, it might actually have some merit. Instead what we get is extremely tired tropes of city clashing with suburbs, and a mom who 5 episodes in still doesn&#8217;t give a shit about her kids and hasn&#8217;t even tried to be a mother.</p>
<p>It&#8217;d be one thing if she tried and failed, it would be kind of fresh because TV, animated or otherwise generally portrays the dads as the bumbling idiots. The key difference here is that Rudi is smart and capable, just a selfish heartless asshole and it&#8217;s not funny. </p>
<p>Mother Up is presented as a &#8220;female take&#8221; on shows like Family Guy but the difference is while those shows featuring bumbling idiots generally inept at parenting, they give a shit about their kids and genuinely try to be better parents. Even if the characters don&#8217;t really grow and change you continually see them trying their best. That&#8217;s what people identify with and find funny. Flawed characters that can royally fuck up sometimes but are genuinely trying. Mother Up&#8217;s protagonist isn&#8217;t just flawed, she&#8217;s an awful person who you have no reason to root for and hope her kids get taken away, The sooner the better.</p>
<p>Final Rating: 1/5-Moms who would actually name their kids &#8220;Apple&#8221; and &#8220;Dick&#8221;.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/19/animation-quick-look-mother/">Animation Quick Look: Mother Up</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Joel&#8217;s Hospital Diaries: Chapter 2</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/17/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-2/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/17/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Jun 2014 21:23:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1562</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Feb 13 Woke up to the good &#8216;ol reliable blood draw at fucking 4AM.  Gotta have that hemo by the time the Mercedes roll in.  Then what the fuck do I do?  I&#8217;m wide awake now.  At 4, we&#8217;ve got &#8216;lil &#8216;lil kids programming, a mess of paid programming, old Married with Children episodes that&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/17/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-2/">Joel&#8217;s Hospital Diaries: Chapter 2</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;">Feb 13</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Woke up to the good &#8216;ol reliable blood draw at fucking 4AM.  Gotta have that hemo by the time the Mercedes roll in.  Then what the fuck do I do?  I&#8217;m wide awake now.  At 4, we&#8217;ve got &#8216;lil &#8216;lil kids programming, a mess of paid programming, old Married with Children episodes that don&#8217;t hold up or Full House episodes that never held up.  Sportscenter and ESPN it is.  Oh, shit.  Derek Jeter&#8217;s retiring.  Maybe I&#8217;ll lay off of ESPN for a year then.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">My doctor, nurses and case manager come in and FUCK! I hate this doctor.  He doesn&#8217;t believe in pain killers.  My last doc gave me 2mg of Dilaudid every two hours.  This doc gives me .5mg every six hours with a Norco(pretty much a yellow skittle to me) every few hours.  I&#8217;m currently cramming as much shit down my piehole as I can, knowing that in about an hour, I won&#8217;t even be able to have even as much as a sip of water as I have surgery set for the morning for my fifth amputation!(I&#8217;ve since had one more)</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I&#8217;m supposed to take a shit for this nice pretty lady, but so far all I can muster are some blaring loud dry farts.  She just woke me up from a deep doze, scaring the hell out of me asking me where my poop was.  Perhaps this is good, because the last time a nurse asked for my poop, it was because I had the Norovirus and I gave that chick some shit and then some.  But I guess I&#8217;m sort of burying the lede here;  Getting big toe #2 amputated tomorrow and I&#8217;m pretty fucking bummed out about it.  I just wish I could help every one of my friends and family before I did this.  Morbid, but I would gladly sacrifice myself for their happiness.  I&#8217;m just getting grumpier with every toe I lose.  Sooner or later a foot?  A leg?  But not yet, you fuckers!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">P.S. My therapist called and said she&#8217;d stop by tomorrow with some food and support, so that&#8217;s nice to have!  Thanks, girl!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Sigh, until an eventful tomorrow.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/17/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-2/">Joel&#8217;s Hospital Diaries: Chapter 2</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: The Legend of Korra</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/15/animation-quick-look-legend-korra/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/15/animation-quick-look-legend-korra/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 15 Jun 2014 13:36:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[avatar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[legend of korra]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nickelodeon]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1549</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the latest animation quick look! Beforfe M. Night Gofuckyourself turned it into one of the worst things ever put in a theater, Avatar: The Last Airbender was easily one of the greatest animated series ever. It created a fantastic original world and story, had deep, complex and fun characters. Unlike most animated series,&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/15/animation-quick-look-legend-korra/">Animation Quick Look: The Legend of Korra</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the latest animation quick look! Beforfe M. Night Gofuckyourself turned it into one of the worst things ever put in a theater, Avatar: The Last Airbender was easily one of the greatest animated series ever. It created a fantastic original world and story, had deep, complex and fun characters. Unlike most animated series, it managed to tell a concise, focused story that wrapped up the major plot points (while of course leaving things open for a follow-up of sorts) in three completely excellent seasons.</p>
<p>I won&#8217;t tell you the whole story of the previous series, because you really should just watch the damn thing, it&#8217;s awesome. But basically there a four tribes that can &#8220;bend&#8221; the four basic elements to their wills. There are some offshoots to this, those who can bend water can occasionally also bend blood, which means they can make people act like their puppets. Fire benders can learn to shoot lightning, and so on.</p>
<p>But the only one who can master all 4 elements is the Avatar. The Avatar is born with that ability and there is only one Avatar at a time. The Avatar is meant to keep balance, so that if one tribe decided to get uppity, he would shut their ass down.</p>
<p>Legend of Korra takes place about 70 years after the events of the previous series, with 17-year old Korra being the latest Avatar. This instantly makes the series a little more adult, as we only saw the previous avatar Aang as a twelve year-old. Legend of Korra also deals with deeper sociopolitical issues. There&#8217;s a rising resentment against benders in general, a bickering and possibly corrupt city council, and a mysterious man leading the anti-bending revolution who can permanently take away benders&#8217; powers. Legend of Korra strikes a darker tone than it&#8217;s predecessor, but still manages silly humor and the batshit crazy but funny moments that is the trademark of the franchise along with a lot of fun winks for longtime fans.</p>
<p>But does it reach the impeccably high standard of the previous series? I&#8217;d say the story is just as intriguing, I basically marathoned the whole first season in a day. But Korra and her friends don&#8217;t quite gel the way Aang and his buddies did, and they aren&#8217;t quite as interesting. I&#8217;m not saying they are bad, but it&#8217;s not quite the same level of perfect chemistry between the characters and I&#8217;m not enjoying them quite as much. But The The Last Airbender is an almost impossible standard to live up to, and Legend of Korra does a pretty damn good job of not fucking up the series pedigree.</p>
<p>Final rating: 4/5 weirdly mixed up animals.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/15/animation-quick-look-legend-korra/">Animation Quick Look: The Legend of Korra</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: Kill La Kill</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/08/animation-quick-look-kill-la-kill/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/06/08/animation-quick-look-kill-la-kill/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 08 Jun 2014 23:36:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Animation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kill La Kill]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1544</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the latest edition of Animation Quick Look! It&#8217;s actually been awhile since I&#8217;ve watched an anime, and I&#8217;ve had this on my &#8220;to watch&#8221; list for awhile, so it seemed like a good a time as any. In Kill La Kill, how well you do in Honnouji Academy determines everything. Your general social&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/06/08/animation-quick-look-kill-la-kill/">Animation Quick Look: Kill La Kill</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the latest edition of Animation Quick Look! It&#8217;s actually been awhile since I&#8217;ve watched an anime, and I&#8217;ve had this on my &#8220;to watch&#8221; list for awhile, so it seemed like a good a time as any. In Kill La Kill, how well you do in Honnouji Academy determines everything. Your general social and financial status is completely based on your school ranking, which you can generally raise be beating students above you in combat.</p>
<p>One big catch though. Everybody above the bottom of the barrel &#8220;no-stars&#8221; students get special suits that enhance their innate abilities, making upward movement nearly impossible. At the top of this hierarchy is Satsuki Kiryuin, who runs the student council and rules with an iron fist. This all gets torn upside down though when Ryuko Matoi transfers into the school, wielding a scissor blade and looking for information about who murdered her eccentric scientist father.</p>
<p>Kill La Kill sounds like a pretty normal mystery &amp; revenge tale (at least by anime standards), but it adds in lot of crazy but fun elements that rise it a notch above the cookie cutter anime. It has slutty outfits but for both guys and girls and constantly pokes fun at them. There&#8217;s an organist literally called &#8220;Nudist Beach&#8221; which seems to have a weird tendency to get undressed while speaking exposition (or at least Ryuko&#8217;s homeroom teacher, who is a member). And there&#8217;s the absurdity of this all happening in the confines of the school. In Kill La Kill, nearly all the fights only happen inside the school and they are pretty insane. But nobody tracks down and fights anybody outside of the school. And they do acknowledge how absurd that is on occasion.</p>
<p>Kill La Kill is just a really fun series. I enjoyed the characters and the battles with crazy animation, Even the filler episodes are pretty fun. Highly recommended. </p>
<p>Final Rating: 5/5 Slutty blood-sucking outfits</p>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe (2002)</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/27/animation-quick-look-man-masters-universe-2002/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/27/animation-quick-look-man-masters-universe-2002/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 28 May 2014 00:26:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Animation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[he-man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1503</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the latest Animation Quick Look! Ok, I never watched a whole lot of He-Man as a kid. I mean I&#8217;ve seen the show and I saw the underrated live action classic starring Dolph Lundgren. But it wasn&#8217;t one of those shows I was hugely into as a kid. Still, I got the jist.&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/27/animation-quick-look-man-masters-universe-2002/">Animation Quick Look: He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe (2002)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to the latest Animation Quick Look! Ok, I never watched a whole lot of He-Man as a kid. I mean I&#8217;ve seen the show and I saw the underrated live action classic starring Dolph Lundgren.</p>
<div style="width: 366px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img alt="" src="http://www.backtotheeighties.net/images/he-man-movie1.jpg" width="360" height="577" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Right up there with Howard The Duck</p></div>
<p>But it wasn&#8217;t one of those shows I was hugely into as a kid. Still, I got the jist. Prince Adam, who is secretly He-Man, battles the evil Skeletor. Lots of gay innuedos for adults and you have wacky characters like Beast Man, Man-At-Arms and so on. There&#8217;s also Orko, who&#8217;s a fucking annoying incompetenet wizard or Jester. He never decides.</p>
<p>So like most hit cartoons of the 80s, of course He-Man would get some sort of reboot. So, in 2002 along comes He-Man and The Masters of The Universe, which basically rewinds everything back a bit. You see the &#8220;origin&#8221; of Skeletor (he had an origin?) de-age Prince Adam a few years and include characters seen in the toy line but not in show, and bam! He-Man lives again!</p>
<p>So here&#8217;s the surprising thing: The setup isn&#8217;t terrible. I mean the original is goofy as fuck and has it&#8217;s charm, no doubt. But for what would probably be sacrosanct to fans of the original, this plays it pretty close to the chest Teela is still pretty kickass, Orko is still annoying. Adam is a bit of a coward, but tries to be a hero without always relying on He-Man on occasion. Evil-Lyn is basically Starscream, which is great. There are ongoing story arcs. It even has a heartfelt lesson at the end of every episode. The animation isn&#8217;t spectacular but better than you&#8217;d expect from a lazy update of an old show.</p>
<p>Where He-Man and the Masters of The Universe falls flat is like 90% of the dialogue and actual plot execution is goddamn painful. A perfect example is in one episode Man-At-Arms and He-Man are trapped in a giant fish thing. He-Man is desperately trying to carry Man-At-Arms up the stomach before Skeletor wins the day. Man-At-Arms tell He-Man to just drop him because he&#8217;s too heavy with his armor. TAKE OFF YOUR HEAVY AS FUCK ARMOR, MAN-AT-ARMS. He-Man says some bullshit about not leaving friends behind later, but he&#8217;s just as fucking dumb for not telling his buddy to lighten the goddamn load. There are numerous examples of this. I&#8217;m not expecting something on the level of Mad Men or anything. but even in a kids show some goddamn logic and basic common sense has to be at play (unless you are purposely going for no logic or common sense, and this isn&#8217;t doing that).</p>
<p>At the end of the day though, much like G.I. Joe: Renegades, I have to ask: Who is this for? I guess it was originally to help launch a whole new Masters of The Universe line along with a movie (that&#8217;s still in development hell to this day) but since that never really materialized it just stands on its own as a weird oddity that probably hung around for 3 seasons because they had nothing else to put on in it&#8217;s time slot.</p>
<p>Final Rating: 2/5-Guys who had their face melted off with acid and still survived</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/27/animation-quick-look-man-masters-universe-2002/">Animation Quick Look: He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe (2002)</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Joel&#8217;s Hospital Diaries: Chapter 1</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/26/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-1/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/26/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 May 2014 00:45:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1497</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>1. A tiny bit of backstory for those not in the know.  I&#8217;ve spent a shitload of time in the hospital over the past couple plus years.  Probably 5 or more months of real time.  Basically I have a lot of problems symptomatic of Diabetes without actually having Diabetes.  I&#8217;ve had six(SIX!) total amputations on&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/26/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-1/">Joel&#8217;s Hospital Diaries: Chapter 1</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>1. A tiny bit of backstory for those not in the know.  I&#8217;ve spent a shitload of time in the hospital over the past couple plus years.  Probably 5 or more months of real time.  Basically I have a lot of problems symptomatic of Diabetes without actually having Diabetes.  I&#8217;ve had six(SIX!) total amputations on my feet now.  But I&#8217;m still walking.  For now at least.  I know just about everyone in the hospital on a first name basis at this point.  I&#8217;m like Norm from Cheers at Sutter Roseville.  Because I see how awful the staff is treated and I&#8217;m usually a peach to compensate.  I&#8217;m very friendly and personable to almost&#8230;almost everyone there.  I&#8217;m well liked.  From the transportation guys to the food service guys, everyone&#8217;s always happy to see me.  But let me tell you, the novelty of being hospitalized wears off fucking fast.</p>
<p>2.  This is pretty much just a journal I kept during one of my stays to goof on what it&#8217;s like dealing with being there, the people and of course, the shit TV.  Anything written by present day me will be in parentheses.  I&#8217;ve been hospitalized 6 more times since I wrote this.  Which is probably why you haven&#8217;t seen me around as much lately.  Deep depression.  Let&#8217;s try and pull myself out of that, shall we?</p>
<p>3. The following took place in February 2014</p>
<p>4. That was my Jack Bauer impression.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Feb 12</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">On the way to wound care, my gut was gurgling.The past two weeks, I had sworn I was going to be hospitalized and was spared.  This time was not to be as the prior two evenings I had found a complete lack of balance as if I were my mother after several vodka tonics.  I&#8217;d fallen down twice as if I were hammered, though the only beverages I&#8217;d consumed that day were white cherry Powerade and some Coke.  So I wasn&#8217;t blitzed.  I have severe neuropathy(look it up) and open wounds on both feet complete with amputation non kung fu grip.  I have never ever stumbled around like this under no influence of drugs or alcohol, so it was a bit disconcerting heading to wound care.  Scotty and Mark both had looks of concern on their faces as I meandered back there.  &#8220;You all right there, Joel?&#8221;  &#8220;Yeah, you don&#8217;t look so great&#8221; They removed the gauze from my feet and began to inspect and go to work on the damage.  I couldn&#8217;t begin to tell you what they said after that as I was clenching my fists to distract from the pain.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I began to put my shoes back on when Mark stopped me, and they pulled in a fucking wheelchair, only the second time they&#8217;d ever done that.  I was frightened.  I was so focused on wanting to trade all of my good parts to my father, who is battling pneumonia, and my friend&#8217;s and my own severe depression, which leaves me just falling the fuck apart.  Emotionally, physically and spiritually.  Last night, my legs began to act as if I was playing the fucking lava game.  I was stepping very far and erratically and frankly was scaring the hell out of myself.  I took a shoulder to my dresser just trying to turn out the lights.  Ow.  And then bringing mail to the mailbox, a branch hit my head causing me to spin out and react like it was the fucking Viet Cong.  So I ran full boar about five and a half feet in the other direction, only to about flip over a gaurdrail.  What the fuck?  This is a very recent and hopefully temporary development, because falling down for no reason is for saps, and frankly I&#8217;m over it.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">So Mark wheels me over to the ER and I go through triage, X Rays, blood tests, etc. The whole rigamorole(Frankly they should fast track me in at this point.  I&#8217;ve been to the ER 25 times.  I&#8217;ve stayed there 25 times.)  Almost every single worker knows me by name, no hyperbole.  This is my 19th hospitalization in almost exactly two years.  You&#8217;d think they&#8217;d have figured this shit out by now.  My loyal, faithful, loving father is wheeling me back to the ER and I would give my left nut not to have to deal with his youngest son like this.  It should be vice versa.  I feel awful about it, but he has truly been a godsend throughout all this.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">I am also what&#8217;s known as a &#8220;tough stick&#8221;, which basically boils down to the nurses and interns treating me like a pincushion until they draw blood, which on me, is as hard as striking oil.Since I just had an IV site inserted, but not yet a pain shot or any antibiotics. my awesome dad goes out to grab me some Taco Bell, my choice of smuggled in food since I can use their myriad of sauces to make their eggs taste less like watery butthole.  And whilst he was out, I got my pain hookup, like literally seconds before he came back in, because I was high as hell(haha, my handwriting takes a pretty steep drop here) and wanted a beefy five layer burrito STAT!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">After it was revealed that I would be admitted, Dad left, which is always a sad moment for me, because then I&#8217;m truly alone.  It coincided rather perfectly this time, because transportation showed up just as he was leaving.  Transportation, for those not in the know, are big buff bros or ladies in NY Giants blue scrubs that bolt patients to their destinations while they talk sports with you.  The Patriots fans are my favorite to talk shit to.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">We arrive at my room, and as per usual, it&#8217;s a rain of &#8220;Joel!&#8221; &#8220;Hey good lookin!&#8221; &#8220;Well if it isn&#8217;t our favorite patient!&#8221; You get the gist. (I was high.  This may or may not be an exaggeration)  This time around, I wasn&#8217;t really to bear weight on either foot, so big buff transport kind of just heaves me from one bed to the other, with no regard for my ballsack.  OW.  A random nurse comes in to take vitals and ask me the same dumbass questionairre that they always do.  In short, no I am not diabetic, Yes I have all the ailments that would suggest otherwise.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Fell asleep wishing death and darkness but Craig Ferguson was on, so it was a smidge difficult.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Stay tuned for more hospital diaries!</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/26/joels-hospital-diaries-chapter-1/">Joel&#8217;s Hospital Diaries: Chapter 1</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: G.I. Joe: Renegades</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/07/animation-quick-look-g-joe-renegades/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/07/animation-quick-look-g-joe-renegades/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 23:15:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Animation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[g.i. joe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[renegades]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1485</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to Animation Quick Look! You know the drill, I watch something animated, tell you if it&#8217;s shit or not. Ah the ever popular reboot of a show kids these days probably have no clue about. G.I. Joe Renegades cuts down the number of &#8220;Joes&#8221; pretty drastically (though ridiculous names like &#8220;Breaker&#8221; &#38; &#8220;Lift Ticket&#8221;&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/07/animation-quick-look-g-joe-renegades/">Animation Quick Look: G.I. Joe: Renegades</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://screensnark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/GI-Joe-Renegades-Season-1-Images-05.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1487 aligncenter" alt="GI-Joe-Renegades-Season-1-Images-05" src="http://screensnark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/GI-Joe-Renegades-Season-1-Images-05-300x168.jpg" width="300" height="168" /></a></p>
<p>Welcome to Animation Quick Look! You know the drill, I watch something animated, tell you if it&#8217;s shit or not.</p>
<p>Ah the ever popular reboot of a show kids these days probably have no clue about. G.I. Joe Renegades cuts down the number of &#8220;Joes&#8221; pretty drastically (though ridiculous names like &#8220;Breaker&#8221; &amp; &#8220;Lift Ticket&#8221; remain) and making everybody look like at best collge-age Joes if not high-school. Young is fine, but these &#8220;Joes&#8221; are supposed to have already seen plenty of action for the most part.</p>
<p>Anyways, this version has Cobra as an organization that basically runs everything, but appears benevolent on the outside. As Roadblock says, his momma works at a Cobra bakery, and damn those pastries are good! (not an exact quote, but pretty close). But of course they wouldn&#8217;t be Cobra if they weren&#8217;t doing some incredibly shady shit on the side like developing monster soldiers and arms dealing.</p>
<p>Essentially Duke, Scarlet, Snake Eyes, Ripcord, Roadblock &amp; Tunnel Rat investigate some sneaky going-ons at a Cobra warehouse and get framed for blowing up the warehouse and murder. </p>
<p>They badly need to clear their name because they are on the run not only from Cobra but from an incompetent as fuck military investigation squad ran by Duke&#8217;s rival, Flint (yep, they&#8217;re rivals now). I mean seriously, there is one episode where they spend ample time in a small town helping the townspeople stand up against Zartan, who now runs a motorcycle gang. It takes them til the end of the episode to arrive. The Joes are considered terrorists, what the hell was Flint doing that whole time? It would&#8217;ve actually made for a pretty interesting episode if they had to help the townspeople while avoiding Flint and his squad. They have Lady J on the inside helping them, it wouldn&#8217;t be impossible.</p>
<p>The dialogue isn&#8217;t terrible, but the group constantly refers to themselves as &#8220;ordinary joes&#8221;. They aren&#8217;t fucking ordinary joes. Having people calling them GI Joes would be corny as hell too, but you don&#8217;t have to say it several times in an episode.</p>
<p>Ultimately, I just don&#8217;t know who this show is for. Anybody who is a fan of the original would probably consider it blasphemy, kids won&#8217;t care as theere is nothing to make it stand out from all the other military cartoons of the past decade. It&#8217;s not completely awful, but it&#8217;s nothing special either. No go joe.</p>
<p>Final Rating: 2/5 ridiculously named highly trained army specialists.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/07/animation-quick-look-g-joe-renegades/">Animation Quick Look: G.I. Joe: Renegades</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Crossing Streams: Prison Break</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/02/crossing-streams-prison-break/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/05/02/crossing-streams-prison-break/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2014 17:10:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joe]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Crossing Streams]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FOX]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prison break]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1479</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;m appointed acting director and take over assignment duties for a week, and this is what I come up with?  To be fair, the Netflix randomizer, or Stream Crosser can be blamed for this debacle.  If 1 trillionth of 1 trillionth of 1% of the total mass of the Internet is occupied by episodes and/or&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/02/crossing-streams-prison-break/">Crossing Streams: Prison Break</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://screensnark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/6a00d83451d69069e2011570bf06ea970b.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1481" alt="6a00d83451d69069e2011570bf06ea970b" src="http://screensnark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/6a00d83451d69069e2011570bf06ea970b-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p>I&#8217;m appointed acting director and take over assignment duties for a week, and this is what I come up with?  To be fair, the Netflix randomizer, or Stream Crosser can be blamed for this debacle.  If 1 trillionth of 1 trillionth of 1% of the total mass of the Internet is occupied by episodes and/or discussions revolving around Prison Break, it&#8217;s too much.  So let&#8217;s add a little to it, shall we!</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p><strong>Rob: </strong>Another &#8220;Crossing Streams&#8221; assignment, another TV show that I avoided watching as it aired. Prison Break began airing in the fall of 2005 and I had two reasons that I refused to watch it. First, I still believe to this day that Prison Break was responsible for the early cancellation of Arrested Development. They aired on the same night and an Arrested Development/Kitchen Confidential/Prison Break block just begs the viewer to either watch the first hour or the second hour. Most people may not remember but the ratings for Arrested Development tanked so hard that fall that Fox stopped airing the show right after the new year and dumped the last four episodes back-to-back on a Friday night in February. This probably had nothing to do with Prison Break but I just remember thinking that Fox devoted a lot of ad time and general promotion to that show while unceremoniously dumping one of the best sitcoms of all-time.</p>
<p>The other reason I refused to watch Prison Break is that I had already seen the definitive prison genre show, HBO&#8217;s &#8220;Oz&#8221;. I am already predisposed to disregard most network dramas as they are somewhat subdued due to the censorship. Everything that your mind could possibly imagine happening in prison, happened on Oz (plus some things that your mind couldn&#8217;t imagine!). Why would I want to watch a network show that I presumed would be a mainstream, accessible version of a show I had already devoured? Plus with a name like Prison Break, it begged the questions &#8220;what happens when they break out of prison?&#8221; &#8220;Do they break out of different prisons each week?&#8221; &#8220;Do they keep getting sent back to prison?&#8221; &#8220;where&#8217;s the goddamn remote?&#8221;</p>
<p>(I guess reason three for not watching this show is because my brother loves it)</p>
<p>So once again, I load up Netflix and pull my assigned episode &#8220;Tweener&#8221;, episode nine from season 1. The first thing I immediately notice is how attractive everyone on the show is. Goddamn network TV. They even have to make the appearance of the actors more accessible to the mainstream viewer. There is a creepy character named T-Bag who apparently rapes the weaker prisoners on the show&#8230;he would be the most handsome guy on Oz.</p>
<p>This is definitely not a show that you could just jump into the middle of and peep. I&#8217;m not really sure what is going on. There is a group of guys working on remodeling a room in the prison, but they are actually digging a hole in the center of the room to escape. In order to disguise the mess they&#8217;re making, they take the debris out into the yard and slowly toss it onto the ground. To anyone who hasn&#8217;t seen Shawshank Redemption, this is likely fucking mindblowing. Never mind that they don&#8217;t seem to be making actual headway on the remodel or that there are no guards in the room overseeing their work.</p>
<p>This show features two actors who portrayed two of the worst characters I have seen on TV in recent memory. There is Sarah Wayne Callies, who plays Dr. Sara on this show, but I know her more for her horrible portrayal of Lori on The Walking Dead. It&#8217;s probably not her fault as that character was terribly written, but based on the limited scenes of hers in this episode, she isn&#8217;t exactly Emmy material. Then there is Marshall Allman, who is playing the wrongly-accused brother of meathead Lincoln (who himself is wrongly accused, I think (?), and is on death row). Marshall played Sam Merlotte&#8217;s idiot brother on True Blood, and if you can stand out as a terrible character on that shitshow, you have really made a name for yourself in my book.</p>
<p>So the gist of this episode is that there are dudes trying to escape from prison (just like the title of the show!), then there is some anal rape stuff (one of the victims ends up hanging himself), and then there is a wrongly-accused character on the run from the law. I will give this show credit, the acting is ok, the writing is ok, the set design and cinematography does not look cheap. I do like Peter Stormare, so it was cool to see him have a part on the show. Just based on this one episode, my interest my piqued enough that if I were laid up and there was a Prison Break marathon on FX, I would consider not changing the channel. That&#8217;s about as ringing of an endorsement that I will give to a show that gave the world an 8-year Bluth hiatus.</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p><strong>Joe: </strong>Okay, honestly?  I watched 10 full minutes of season 2 episode 4 and regretted it.  I&#8217;m trying to catch up with House of Cards, and this is how I&#8217;m spending the little time I have in between GoT, Mad Men, The Americans, and the 24 season debut?</p>
<p>So yes, I quit watching, I couldn&#8217;t stomach it.  Hamfisted acting, stock direction, unbearable dialogue, a completely unreasonable high concept, basically no redeeming qualities.  But it did get me thinking, which is probably the point of the exercise.  Do those of us who enjoy medium to high quality television somehow need the buffer of awfulness provided by shows like Prison Break?  Yes, I feel like one of those assholes that turns down a Miller Lite and will only drink Stella poured in an approved regulation glass, but I don&#8217;t want the unwashed masses infecting my enjoyment of Mad Men.  I don&#8217;t need to hear &#8220;DUDE WASN&#8217;T THAT AWESOME WHEN DON FUCKED THAT ONE BITCH AND THEN GOT ALL FUCKED UP?!?&#8221; when I come in to work on Mondays.  At this point, it&#8217;s a proven fact with five decades of evidence that some people are inevitably going to watch shit movies (when is Deuce Bigalow 3 coming out?) listen to shit music (people 30 and older know the dangers of boy bands, but there&#8217;s no way we&#8217;re passing that lesson on to future generations) and watch shit TV (do we need to review the network lineup success rate of shows that launched the last few autumns?).  So no, I&#8217;m not going to watch Prison Break.  But on some level, I&#8217;m grateful that garbage like this exists, so that I can enjoy my 1917 Chateau Blanche Madmoiselle Blahblahblah without the Keystone Light riffraff pissing on my shoes.  Viva la 4+ seasons of Prison Break!  When they gonna break out dis damn prison?!?!?</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p><strong>Phil: </strong>Dramas frequently require the suspension of disbelief by their viewers, but Prison Break requires the expulsion of disbelief. This show is alarmingly complex, yet somehow vapid.</p>
<p>As a virgin viewer, here is what I could ascertain:</p>
<p>-An evil organization called “The Company” and led by “The General” is pulling all of the strings<br />
-The prison break has successfully occurred, because there are no scenes shot in a penitentiary<br />
-A musclebound fellow did sneak into a prison to break his brother out. One of the brothers now works for “The Company”<br />
-You can track the location of somebody on a flip phone using a stock Windows laptop<br />
-Everyone is after something called “Scylla”, some form of uber-weapon (which I would guess has little to do the monster from the Odyssey)<br />
-Even bound and at gunpoint, your mother will still criticize you, offer unsolicited advice and try to resolve twenty-year-old parenting issues<br />
-Really attractive and high-functioning pregnant women can be smackheads<br />
-The barrier for entry for television actors is much, much lower than I would have guessed<br />
-Apparently there are people who will watch anything which airs at 9PM on a network</p>
<p>In fairness, I dropped into the series at the nineteenth episode of the fourth season with no knowledge of the (wooden) characters or the (convoluted) plot lines. That said, I am pretty happy not to have invested the 70+ hours of time I would need for this piece of shit to make sense to me. If you are going to just drop in on a network drama, stick to the single-serving fare offered by procedurals.</p>
<p>___________________________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p>So, as per the norm, Screensnark recommends you avoid the show that we sampled at all costs.  Unless you need a hangover marathon show.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/05/02/crossing-streams-prison-break/">Crossing Streams: Prison Break</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Animation Quick Look: Fate/Zero</title>
		<link>http://screensnark.com/2014/04/26/animation-quick-look-fatezero/</link>
		<comments>http://screensnark.com/2014/04/26/animation-quick-look-fatezero/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 26 Apr 2014 12:49:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured Columns]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anime]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fate/zero]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://screensnark.com/?p=1456</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Welcome to animation quick look, you know the drill. In short Fate/Zero is Dragonball Z, but extremely fucked up. Before I get to that, let me lay down the basics. Centuries ago, powerful wizard families created a powerful artifact that granted wises called &#8220;the holy grail&#8221;, the problem was, it only granted one wish to&#8230;</p><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com/2014/04/26/animation-quick-look-fatezero/">Animation Quick Look: Fate/Zero</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://screensnark.com">screensnark.</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center"><a href="http://screensnark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/fz1.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1458 aligncenter" alt="fz1" src="http://screensnark.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/fz1-300x190.jpg" width="300" height="190" /></a></p>
<p>Welcome to animation quick look, you know the drill. In short Fate/Zero is Dragonball Z, but extremely fucked up. Before I get to that, let me lay down the basics.</p>
<p>Centuries ago, powerful wizard families created a powerful artifact that granted wises called &#8220;the holy grail&#8221;, the problem was, it only granted one wish to one person, so of course the families went to war over it (they couldn&#8217;t just wish for infinite wishes? It&#8217;s not a genie). Why is the series called Fate/Zero? I have no clue.</p>
<p>This eventually leads to what is known as the &#8220;holy grail wars&#8221;. Seven mages chosen by the grail summon the spirits of ancient legendary heroes such as King Arthur and Gilgamesh to do battle. There have been 3 so far, with no winner (I don&#8217;t really understand how there has no winner, you basically use the spirits like Pokemon, last one standing wins). We come in during the fourth one, where goddammit there will finally be a winner.</p>
<p>Now let me explained how fucked up Fate/Zero is. One of the mages is a child murderer. You see him doing things like crucifiying children and having a grand old time of it. His spirit, simply named &#8220;Caster&#8221; is a like-minded psychopath, which of course only makes things worse. This is after seeing a scene where some old dude convinces a mage to fight for him because otherwise he&#8217;s going to continue subjecting a little girl to lying naked in a room and having giant bugs crawl all over her every night. He&#8217;s not merely threatening to do this, he&#8217;s already doing it, he&#8217;s merely telling the mage he&#8217;ll stop doing it if the mage wins the grail war for him. The I laughed very inappropriately at the little girl being excited later about one night not having to sleep naked with the bugs because it was just so goddamned absurd. </p>
<p>But hey at least the child murderer is something relatively interesting. Fate/Zero is mostly filled with boring stock one-dimensional characters like Rider, who is your usual &#8220;I FIGHT EVERYTHING BECAUSE THAT&#8217;S MANLY&#8221; type. Or Saber who is your normal chivalrous type but with a twist-see she&#8217;s King Arthur! It&#8217;s not really clear whether they were implying Arthur was actually a woman all along or he just happened to be re-incarnated as woman for this war. Doesn&#8217;t matter though, they do nothing interesting with that.</p>
<p>Pretty much the only high compliment I can pay to Fate/Zero is that the animation is pretty top notch. The character designs are pretty cool (which makes the boring personalities all the more disappointing) and the battles are slick and fun to watch. But like many anime series that promise lots of epic battling, Fate/Zero spends a whole lot of time building up to said battles and it&#8217;s just not worth dredging through the exposition.</p>
<p>Final Rating: 2/5-Naked girls covered in bugs.</p>
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