"A Man on the Inside," Year Two

I've spent some time comparing and contrasting "A Man on the Inside" with the other major mystery show featuring go-getter seniors, "Only Murders in the Building."  I'm sorry to say that "A Man on the Inside" too often falls short.  It has no lack of talent, having been created by Michael Schur, features the work of writers like Megan Amram, and has a horde of great acting talent.  However, "A Man on the Inside" feels very slight this year, when I was hoping it would branch out a bit more and establish itself as a show that could sustain multiple seasons.

Moving past its original premise, Charles has taken on a new case investigating a theft at the fictional Wheeler College, where the provost, Holly Bidgemark (Jill Talley), is hoping to secure a major donation from a billionaire, Brad Vinick (Gary Cole), thus ensuring the school's future.  Someone has made off with a laptop full of sensitive material and left a threatening note.  The suspects include members of the faculty, including professors played by David Strathairn and Mary Steenburgen, so Charles is on the case, posing as a visiting lecturer as he searches for clues.

I love spotting familiar older actors in this series, like Constance Marie as Julie Kovalenko's estranged mother, and Jackee Harry as a new love interest for Calbert.  Strathairn is a highlight as a grumpy classics professor who immediately antagonizes Charles.  Unfortunately, the mystery doesn't offer much of interest, and the tone of the show has settled for being blandly pleasant and low stakes.  Most of Charles' attention is taken up with a new relationship - he's fallen head over heels for Wheeler's music professor Mona Margadoff (Steenburgen), and often neglects gumshoeing to pursue her.  Julie takes up some of the slack with the investigation, and we also spend more time with Emily, Didi, and some of the Pacific View Retirement Community characters from the first season. 

"Only Murders" has a similarly cuddly dynamic with its leads, but is much more lively and retains a darker humorous edge.  The crimes may be ridiculous, and the baddies may be overdramatic, but there's an urgency to the show that is completely missing from "A Man on the Inside."  It's not just a matter of murders versus thefts, but the universe of "A Man on the Inside" is generally a much nicer, friendlier, slower-paced sitcom setting that is prioritizing an older audience.  And as much as I appreciate this kind of content, I can't help feeling a little too young for it.  Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, who have been a real couple for decades, are absolutely adorable in the show, but their romance did nothing for me.    

I like "A Man on the Inside" better when it's closer to its original format, with Charles eagerly jumping into situations without thinking them through, and discovering that being a spy is harder than it looks.  The season's best episode by far is the one where Charles recruits a couple of his Pacific View friends to help him steal Vinick's phone at a party, which has a lot of fun foibles involving code names and foiled plans.   The season is only eight episodes, but there are several episodes that feel too much like filler, just playing out old sitcom plots instead of moving the case forward.  Also, as much as I like Julie and Emily, the time spent with them that doesn't directly involve Charles feels like I'm watching a different show.  

I'm sure that "A Man on the Inside" could go on for a few more seasons with Charles taking on more cases and making more friends.  There's definitely an audience for this kind of show.  I'm just not sure that I should be part of it.  

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"The Running Man" and "Now You See Me: Now You Don't"

These two movies opened head to head on the same weekend, and one flopped while the other didn't.  I like them both for different reasons.

First, Edgar Wright's adaptation of Richard Bachman's "The Running Man" is an ambitious, noble failure, which makes it the far more interesting option.  Set in a future dystopia where the slightest rebellion means unemployment and poverty, a down-on-his luck father named Ben Richards (Glen Powell) signs on as a participant in the popular televised death game, "The Running Man."  His goal is to survive for thirty days without being killed, either by the public or by a team of professional "Hunters," to win a billion dollars.  This also means staying ahead of the omnipresent surveillance state, and the vile behind-the-scenes machinations of the show's producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), who deals in misinformation and propaganda to sway his audience's sympathies.

The worldbuilding of "The Running Man" is the best thing about it, offering a sobering look at a society where the flow of information is entirely controlled by the "execs," who subjugate the poor with impunity, and can deepfake anything except the ineffable human element to keep their death games interesting to the public.  There are so many well-considered little details, like public services being rationed, and a thriving black market in old CRT televisions that don't watch you back.  Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall have a lot of targets, spoofing the Kardashians and breakfast cereal ads among other things, but they spend most of their time on the rich/poor divide, passive consumption, and the culture of distraction.  "The Running Man" can only operate the way it does because  Killian and the host Bobby T (Colman Domingo) make up lies about the contestants and paint them in the worst light possible, prompting the public to hate them, thus making it okay to enjoy their deaths. 

Unfortunately, the part of "The Running Man" that's supposed to be a fun action film gets compromised in the process.  Glen Powell does fine at being a sympathetic action hero, but the script has some fundamental issues.  It's too long, it's repetitive, and the ending has every sign of trying to shoehorn a happier ending into the movie at the last minute.  Ben Richards has encounters with a lot of different allies and foes over the course of the game, including Michael Cera, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones, Karl Glusman, Daniel Ezra, and William H. Macy.  Some of these are a lot of fun, but there's a curious lack of the kind of inventive, idiosyncratic action sequences that Edgar Wright is best known for.  The action's not bad, but there are only two sections where Wright really feels like he's letting loose, and the rest are pretty generic.  The tone is also frequently a little too dark and dour - too much "Minority Report," and not enough "Robocop."  The movie does some things well, and I absolutely think it's worth seeing, but this is not the "Running Man" reboot or the Edgar Wright blockbuster I think most of the fans were hoping for.  

I also want to say a little bit about "Now You See Me: Now You Don't," which is the third of the "Now You See Me" films.  Ruben Fleischer is in the director's chair this time, and we have a quartet of new screenwriters, who actually manage a halfway decent story.  It's still not much of a story, but at least it's not the complete bungle that the first one was, and has more interesting stakes than the second.  Every member of The Four Horsemen magician team from the original film is back for this one, including Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt (Woody Harrelson), and Jack (Dave Franco), plus Isla Fischer as Henley, who sat out the last installment.  They're joined by a trio of young up-and-comers, Bosco (Dominic Sessa), June (Ariana Greenblatt), and Charlie (Justice Smith), with the goal of stealing a very big diamond from a two-faced South African mining heiress, Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).

The "Now You See Me" films are full of impossible magic tricks that aren't all that impressive, because nearly all of them are accomplished with basic editing tricks and CGI.  However, they're still fun to watch because they're executed with a lot of theatrical style and bombast, and the actors get to play big and broad.  This time the character dynamics involve a lot of intergenerational sniping between the two teams - the Jesse Eisenberg and Dominic Sessa animosity is amusingly dorky - and the Horsemen have been split up for a long time due to some offscreen drama.  There are a lot of secrets to be revealed and a big twist, of course, but this one played fair, and did the setups and payoffs properly.  It was clunky and predictable, but I appreciate the effort.  

I don't know that I need more of these, especially as the franchise seems to be trying to set itself up as "The Fast & The Furious" with magicians, but the movies are pleasantly diverting enough that I don't mind if they stick around.

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How We Got To "Twisted Wonderland"

As someone who knows way too much about Disney, I've watched the uses of Disney IP change and adapt with the times.  Disney has branding that is so strong, it can be applied in all sorts of interesting ways.  Shared universes based on the classic Disney animated films have been especially prevalent over the last decade or so, with IP like the "Descendants" movies, the "Once Upon a Time" franchise, and the "Kingdom Hearts" games.  Recently, I stumbled across one that I wasn't familiar with - "Twisted Wonderland," which is a mobile game that looks very un-Disney at first glance 

In "Twisted Wonderland," the player is transported to Night Raven College, a magical academy where the students are split into seven dorms, each inspired by a classic Disney villain - The Evil Queen from "Snow White," The Queen of Hearts from "Alice in Wonderland," Hades from "Hercules," Scar from "The Lion King, " Jafar from "Aladdin," Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty," and Ursula from "The Little Mermaid."  The story and character designs are by mangaka Yana Toboso, best known for the "Black Butler" series.  All of the characters are male, which strongly suggests that the intended target audience is girls and young women.  As you navigate through the school year, following the Night Raven students on their adventures, the main goal seems to be collecting up all the various cute guy characters and digital cards that feature them.     

There's a whole genre of games like this, known as gacha games, which are often built around lootbox mechanics and character-based collectibles.  The most popular titles like "Genshin Impact," "Honkai: Star Rail,"  and "Zenless Zone Zero" have millions of players and are especially popular in Asia.  It's no wonder that Disney wanted to get involved.  "Twisted Wonderland" launched in Japan in 2020 and did well enough that an English language version followed in 2022, along with the manga and anime adaptations.  But what I find so fascinating about "Twisted Wonderland" is how peripheral the use of Disney IP is in this game.  The characters are overwhelmingly original creations, with names like Azul Ashengrotto and Riddle Rosehearts, instead of variants of familiar Disney characters, like the ones in "Disney Heroes Battle Mode" or "Disney Mirrorverse."  But looking at other gacha games, there's a very obvious template for success here, and Disney is clearly trying to appeal to the existing audience.

Though the Disney villains are referenced frequently, and clips of their movies are used in the anime, none of them actually appear as characters in "Twisted Wonderland."  The only Disney character I spotted in the first three episodes of the anime series was the Magic Mirror from "Snow White," who is responsible for the player being brought to the "Twisted Wonderland" world, but doesn't do much else.  

Where the Disney influence is the most obvious is the character and environment designs.  The students from Maleficent's dorm all wear hats that resemble her horns.  The ones in Hades' dorm have his flaming blue hair, and the Queen of Hearts' dorm features a pack of characters named and designed after playing cards in her color scheme.  Others aren't so obvious - the trio from Ursula's dorm are very vibes based.  

The villains are referred to in-game as "The Great Seven," and the students revere them, but also ascribe various qualities to them that don't square with what we know.  Ursula is described as a "benevolent" wish-granter.  Hades has somehow inspired a dorm dedicated to the most technologically minded students.  The worldbuilding seems to be based on the idea that this is an alternate universe where the ruling  villains managed to create a series of fairly functional magical kingdoms despite being baddies.  There are Disney Easter eggs everywhere, and occasionally the characters will end up in places like the Seven Dwarves' mine.  Several minor and background characters are also based on other Disney villains, like the gym teacher who looks suspiciously like Gaston from "Beauty and the Beast."

It's fascinating to see the approach that was taken to adapt Disney IP to something as aesthetically different as a gacha game.  I have so many questions about the creative choices, like why these particular seven villains were chosen, while other fairly popular ones like Captain Hook were not.  Is it because all the ones in the game are magic users, except Scar who's there for the Furries?  Why theme everything after Disney villains in the first place, rather than Disney heroes or Tokyo Disneyland regions?

I know some of you are noticing that I haven't mentioned whether I think "Twisted Wonderland" is any good.  Well, after watching a few playthrough videos and three of the available anime episodes, the answer is that "Twister Wonderland" definitely isn't aimed at me.  Like most recent Disney multiversal media, I'm too old for it, and way too cynical to take it at face value.  However, the implications from an IP management standpoint definitely have my attention.

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My Top Ten Episodes of 2008-2009

Below, find my top ten episodes for the 2008-2009 television season below, in no particular order.  A few spoilers lie ahead, including the endings of "Avatar: the Last Airbender" and "Battlestar Galactica," and the second season of "Breaking Bad."

30 Rock, "Reunion" - "30 Rock" could always be counted on to turn common television storytelling tropes on their heads.  In "Reunion," we journey outside the show's usual New York City digs, and Liz goes to her high school reunion, where everyone is avoiding her or acting weird around her.  Because it turns out that Liz Lemon was a terrible person in high school and deserves it.  Alec Baldwin also gets to play Jack playing someone else, which is always a delight.  

Mad Men, "Meditations in an Emergency" - I love watching Don Draper outmaneuver his rivals, and this is one of the best examples, where an impending merger means he gets to show Pete and Duck exactly where he stands with the agency.  Betty and Peggy also have their own revelations to share, Betty ultimately choosing to remain with Don, while Peggy ends any possibility of a renewed romantic relationship with Pete in the coldest possible terms.  

Breaking Bad, "Phoenix" - I had a tough time picking a favorite episode, because I consider this one of the best seasons of television ever made.  However, Walt reaching a new low with his part in Jane's death was undeniably one of the most important, nerve-wracking moments in the series.  Cranston got a lot of kudos for his performance, and deservedly so, but Aaron Paul's work was what really got to me here, as Jesse's life takes yet another turn for the worse.  

Doctor Who, "Midnight" - My favorite Russell T. Davies "Doctor Who" story is a bottle episode where the Doctor and an assortment of travellers are trapped in a small space with a nightmarish monster.  We never see the monster, but it communicates well enough through possessing a passenger played by Lesley Sharp, quickly growing smarter and scarier.  There's nothing fancy about the production, but the episode makes for an excellent small scale paranoid thriller.  

Avatar the Last Airbender, "Sozin's Comet" - The entire feature-length finale is wonderful, but if I have to pick a specific episode, it's got to be the very last one, where Zuko and Azula finally have their duel, and Aang figures out how to defeat the Firelord in a way he can live with.  The series remains one of the most impressive pieces of long-form storytelling in any medium, animated or otherwise, with a satisfying climax that knew exactly when it was time to say goodbye.  

The Venture Bros., "The Buddy System" - This is the one where we meet Dermott, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch gets a costume upgrade.  Fairly uneventful episodes like this one, where Rusty runs a day camp to make some quick cash, employing a bunch of his friends as unpaid counselors, were always my favorites.  There are so many wonderful bits of absurdity, like the Order of the Triad safety sketch, Billy getting shot, and the intense reappearance of Action Johnny.  

Dead Set, "A Way Out" - The best thing that anybody did with the "Big Brother" reality show was to let Charlie Brooker take it over and turn it into a zombie invasion horror miniseries back in 2008.  There are a couple of cameos from the regular host and a few prior participants, but all the major players in the miniseries are fictional  and played by actors.  Still, the use of the real sets counts for a lot, especially in this finale episode when things get really bloody and fun.  

The Middleman, "The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome" - I loved this weird little genre show starring Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar as secret agents in a comic book universe.  It only lasted one season, but brought me much joy.  I decided to pick the show's jaunt into an evil mirror universe for this list, because I can't resist darkest timeline stories and Keeslar gets to dress up like Snake Plisskin.  If the series finale had been filmed, I probably would have picked that one.  

Battlestar Galactica, "Crossroads Part 2" - Going into a midseason hiatus, "Crossroads" revealed the identities of four of the Final Five Cylons to the rest of the cast, and finally let the fleet have a win.  It's an episode absolutely jam-packed with incident, capping off years worth of buildup and anticipation, and ends on one of the most quietly devastating scenes in the entire series.  I have qualms about some of these storylines, but I remain deeply impressed at how it was pulled off.

Top Gear, "The Vietnam Special" - I'm biased because this was the first of the "Top Gear" specials that I saw, so any repetition of the bits was lost on me.  I just adored watching this trio of hapless middle-aged Brits make increasingly ridiculous spectacles of themselves as they traversed South Asia on motorbikes on an epic eight-day journey.  As a movie nerd, I was also very pleased with the constant stream of Vietnam War movie references.

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"Eyes of Wakanda" and "Marvel Zombies"

Two Marvel universe animated miniseries were released last year, which both skewed nerdier and more mature than Disney+'s usual animated offerings.  Both run four episodes of roughly 30 minutes each, adding up to the length of two feature films.  

"Eyes of Wakanda" explores concepts from "Black Panther," tracking the efforts of multiple Wakandans over the centuries retrieving artifacts and going on special missions around the globe.  In the first episode, a former Dora Milaje travels to the Minoan Empire to retrieve a Wakandan agent who has gone rogue.  The second is set during the Trojan War, the third in China in the 1400s, and the fourth gives us glimpses of Wakanda of the future.  All the characters are new, and don't have obvious ties to the characters in "Black Panther," which means there's some time needed to adjust to the new reality of each episode.

The series is designed to be a showcase for black talent, with the episodes written by Geoffrey Thorne and Marc Bernardin, directed by Todd Harris and John Fang, and cast with an array of black actors including Steven Touissant and Anika Noni Rose.  What stands out are the visuals, featuring a dynamic, impactful animation style that makes the action scenes look great.  The production quality is strong the whole way through, but this is very much an anthology where the individual stories are designed to be self-contained and barely connected to each other, so "Eyes of Wakanda" ends up feeling very diverting but non-essential.  I'd love to see some of the episodes expanded, especially the third where we get a crossover with a different part of the MCU, but getting "Eyes of Wakanda" made was surely difficult enough. 

However, as unlikely as "Eyes of Wakanda" is, I'm downright baffled that "Marvel Zombies" exists.  This is a spinoff of the "What If…?" episode that takes place in a dystopian version of Earth where much of the population and the superhero community have been zombified.  It uses the same visual style and brings back many of the same characters.  "Marvel Zombies" has a mature rating because there is violence galore and characters are constantly being killed left and right.  We start out in the first episode with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) being gal-pal survivalists together in the remains of New York, who discover a mystery device inside a zombie, which might save the world.  This kicks off a long, winding journey through different realms of the zombified MCU, picking up friends and allies and much more trouble along the way.

  

I appreciate that the status quo is constantly changing in "Marvel Zombies," so it's impossible to guess what's going to happen next.  The stakes are also properly epic, as the miniseries builds to a big conclusion involving multiple big bads.  However, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but the most die-hard adult MCU fans.  It takes a good amount of knowledge of the existing film continuity to keep all the various characters straight, and appreciate how they differ from their original versions.  The  inexpressive animation style is also not helpful in this regard.  It took me a while to realize that John Walker (Wyatt Russell) had shown up in one of the episodes, and I spent a few minutes of the finale trying to work out who another character was (It was London Master (Daniel Swain) from the second "Doctor Strange" movie).   

If you're confident in your nerd bona fides, however, and you like darkest timeline scenarios, "Marvel Zombies" can be a lot of fun.  A surprising number of MCU actors were convinced to lend their voices to the project, and I like what the series does with some of them.  A few of my favorites get great death scenes, and this is definitely the best use of Agent Woo (Randall Park) yet.  There's a focus on "Shang-Chi" and "Black Widow" characters, which hints at when "Marvel Zombies" was written, but also some fun cameos from other shows.  Also, we get an interesting version of Blade (Todd Williams) who provides hints at what his long-stalled feature was going to look like.  

Marvel doesn't get this dark very often, so if "Marvel Zombies" sounds like it would appeal to you, enjoy it while you can.        

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"Wake Up Dead Man" is the Best Blanc Mystery

I suspect that "Wake Up Dead Man" is the best Rian Johnson film.  It's easily the best of the three Benoit Blanc movies he's made so far, and I really liked the first two.  "Wake Up Dead Man" is another murder mystery featuring the Daniel Craig sleuth, with plenty of social commentary, and some good laughs in the mix.  However, this is a darker, more thoughtful story, set in and around a small Catholic church in upstate New York.  The new assistant pastor, Father Jud (Josh O'Connor) has written to Benoit Blanc about a murder.  Who the victim is probably counts as a spoiler, so I'll just say that the major figures involved in the crime are the charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), his henchwoman Martha (Glenn Close), her husband Samson (Thomas Hayden Church), and local townsfolk played by Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Daryl McCormack, Mila Kunis and Cailee Spaeny.

Unlike "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion," the rich aren't the targets of "Wake Up Dead Man."  Rather, we're looking at a different facet of privilege and power, with religion put under the microscope.  Christianity is examined from several different points of view, with Monsignor Wicks and Father Jud each offering their own contrasting viewpoints.  Benoit Blanc is the skeptical atheist who comes on the scene trying to find the truth, and it's a much more complicated story than it seems at first glance, touching on a lot of the different roles that Christianity and the church play in American society.  The only way to solve the mystery is to understand the worldviews of the suspects, and the lesson, ultimately, is the importance of empathy rather than faith.  Rian Johnson has described himself as an ex-believer in interviews, and you can absolutely tell how personal this material is to him.  There are some very funny scenes and suitably sharp zingers, but Johnson is also earnestly grappling with questions of how religion fits into the modern world, in a way that only someone very familiar with the church could.

"Wake Up Dead Man" benefits from a very strong cast.  The clear standout is Josh O'Connor, who has the tricky job of staying both sympathetic and untrustworthy in the minds of the viewers for most of the movie.  He has the vast majority of the screentime, and I find it very meaningful that he struggles honestly and openly with his role at the church in a way that feels far too rare.  Unfortunately, this means that the rest of the cast feel less well served.  Or rather, the other characters feel broad and caricatured the way that the characters in "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion" were, but few display the depth and the shadings that Father Jud does.  Wicks, for instance, is memorably vile, and I admire Brolin's performance, but I was never able to quite take him seriously as a threat to our heroes, and he wasn't outrageously nasty enough to be as entertaining as he could have been.  Actors like Andrew Scott and Kerry Washington barely have enough screen time for their characters to register, though they're good enough actors that they do.  Glenn Close, however, finally gets a role worthy of her talents in who knows how long.

Johnson gets a lot of great imagery out of the ecclesiastical trappings, and the visual storytelling is consistently excellent.  I love the local bar that's devil themed, and Father Jud's tattoos hinting at a past that can't be easily erased.  The running gag with Martha is pitch perfect every time it happens.  The editing is fabulous, deftly juggling the multiple POVs and jumps to different points on the timeline.  This is a long movie, and the investigation doesn't really get underway until Blanc shows up around 45 minutes in, but it never feels too slow or too indulgent.  Okay, Rian Johnson probably wouldn't have gotten away with some of the more venal jokes if this were the first Benoit Blanc movie, but he's earned some leeway from me.

Most importantly, the story feels fully explored and the tone is well balanced.  All the little things that used to bother me about Rian Johnson films have been addressed, or are compensated for.  This is the first film of his I'm comfortable calling a great film, and it's timely, entertaining, and genuinely moving too.  If this is the last Benoit Blanc film, the series is going out on a high note.  And it's leaving me wanting more.

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Rank 'Em: "Star Wars: Visions," Year Three

"Visions" is back with nine more shorts, working with mostly the same Japanese studios that produced the first season that premiered back in 2021.  Three of the new shorts are direct sequels to previous "Visions" installments, and I'd say that the quality is more consistently good this time out.   Without further ado, find my thoughts on each short below, ranked from best to least.  I watched the English language versions of all the shorts.

"The Duel: Payback" - Easily the best of the collection, as the Ronin teams up with a Twilek Sith, and fights a seriously warped rogue Jedi.  The combination of Japanese brush illustrations, feudal era aesthetics, and Star Wars concepts remains fabulous to look at.  Even the Ewok bits!  This has the best action and fight scenes of this season of "Visions" by far, and characters I'd love to get to know better.

"BLACK" - The shortest short is a psychedelic, violent "Star Wars" tribute that plunges us into the midst of the endless battle between the Empire and the Rebellion, with a snazzy jazz soundtrack.  This feels more like a combination of "Star Wars" and "Heavy Metal" than "Star Wars" and anime, though I appreciate the willingness to get experimental.  It's the most un-Disney piece made for Disney+ yet.  

"The Song of Four Wings" - This is one of the more visually impressive shorts, though there isn't much of a story to speak of.  The heroine, Princess Crane, rescues a little war orphan and the two of them and the Princess's loyal droid spend the rest of the short battling the Imperials, getting into chase and fight sequences, and making some really pretty explosions.  Bonus points for the X-wing transformation.   

"The Bounty Hunters" - The visuals here aren't the best, but the characters and story won me over completely.  We've got an anti-heroine with a heart of gold (voiced by Anna Sawai!), an assassin droid with two personalities, and a jerk of a villain who needs to be taken down. It's zippy and fun, the humor works, and it's definitely a "Star Wars" story, focusing on the scruffier side of the universe.       

"The Lost Ones" - This is a sequel to the first season's "The Village Bride," following the further adventures of the wanderer F as she tries to help out refugees on a different world.  This is a much more action-oriented story that delves in the background of F and gives her a worthy adversary.  There's nothing too fancy going on with the visuals or presentation, but it's all flawlessly executed.  

"Yuko's Treasure" - Here's another one from Kinema Citrus, about a little girl named Yuko who is protected and looked after by a big, cuddly bear droid named BILY.  It's a story aimed at smaller kids, or those who like to watch cute kids doing cute things, but the execution is solid.  I especially appreciate the kawaii design work that adapts "Star Wars" elements into much friendlier anime forms.     

"The Smuggler" - Studio Trigger's contribution this year is a very charming little adventure story where a smuggler helps out a prince in disguise.  I like the Jedi who shows up in this one, but otherwise the "Star Wars" imagery here is just for window dressing.  As a fan of older anime, the style was very nostalgic.  "The Smuggler" can't hope to match up to the more ambitious shorts, but I enjoyed it for what it was.  

"The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope" - Naoyoshi Shiotani replaces Kenji Kamiyama as director for the follow-up to "The Ninth Jedi."  However, this one is much less interesting that the first installment, focusing on the character of Kara for what amounts to a generic kid-and-droid story.  It doesn't help that the English dub is pretty hard on the ears, with a squeaky heroine and a goofy droid that speaks in the third person.

"The Bird of Paradise" - I'm not a fan of the hybrid animation style, the immature protagonist, the awkward story structure, or the English language dialogue.  There are some lovely visuals, but often this feels more like a tech demo than a proper short film.  

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