5 Razors

The Great Films – My Neighbor Totoro

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  • Title: My Neighbor Totoro
  • IMDb: link

Universally regarded as one of the best animated films of all time, 1988’s My Neighbor Totoro follows 10 year-old Satsuki Kusakabe (Noriko Hidaka | Dakota Fanning) and 4 year-old Mei Kusakabe (Chika Sakamoto | Elle Fanning) on an amazing adventure after the move to the countryside with their father Tatsuo (Shigesato Itoi | Tim Daly). Shortly after arriving, the girls discover their new home is different finding dust spites in the house. Mei later follows two more unusual characters through the woods where she encounters the slumbering Totoro who more fascinates the young girl than scares her.

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Wonder Woman #18

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Walking through explosions, threats, and would be rivals, Wonder Woman arrives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and proceeds to, quite literally, kick the door down. The time of reckoning has come. The inevitable confrontation between Diana and the Sovereign looms throughout the issue, although it saved for at least another month. What we do get is Wonder Woman fighting past the would-be soldiers and even a new General Glory, with a little surprise for Grail, while the Wonder Girls remain at home taking care of Diana’s daughter allowing Wonder Woman to make the stand on her own (well, with a little help from a friend).

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The Great Films – The Third Man

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  • Title: The Third Man
  • IMDb: link

Set in post-WWII Europe, director Carol Reed‘s cinematic masterpiece begins with the arrival of American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) in occupied Austria only to learn the friend he had come to visit on his last dime, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), is dead. Despite everyone he meets telling him he should return home, Holly sticks around the city playing amateur detective hoping to learn more about how and why Harry died.

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Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.

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

I don’t know if 1974’s Chinatown is without doubt the best film for everyone involved, both in front and behind the camera, but one could certainly make the case. Director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne come together with a neo-noir staple which provided Jack Nicholson one of his most famous roles as private investigator J. J. Gittes who struggles to find the truth surrounding the death of chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power (Darrell Zwerling), who Gittes was hired to surveil by a woman (Diane Ladd) pretending to be his wife (Faye Dunaway), and uncover how that death plays into a larger conspiracy of the Los Angeles draught and a land scheme which allows 30s Los Angeles to become a major character in the film.

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Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown. Read More »

Jenny Sparks #6

/ / Comics

As the war of words continues between Jenny Sparks and Captain Atom, Jenny Sparks #6 continues to explore what it means to be a hero. We get references to not one but two pandemics Jenny lived through, first in 1918 and then in 2020 where her frustration boiled over that not even Superman could help. There’s a really nice moment between the pair in a flashback driving home the point of mask mandates and social distancing that far, far too many Americans missed.

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