Bleach Recaps: Ep. 212, Star Chamber

...And we're back online.  More "Bleach".  This is by far the latest I've done a recap, something I'll have to apologize for.  I was a bit busy having fun in Jerusalem's downtown, taking breathtaking hikes through some of the most beautiful places on Earth, sending a letter to my little cousin at the Western Wall, and totally striking out a few times with chicks (those bitches).  All together, best goddamn vacation of my life, I'll say.  Now I've entered what is phase 2 of my Israeli adventure, which I suspect will be a Hell of a lot more relaxed than the crazy high-paced speed of the last ten days.  That means I can finally catch up on all the anime I've missed.  I want to hear some applause right now from you folks.  You're all the best.

This is the last episode of the Turn Back the Pendulum Arc, what has to be by far the shortest season of "Bleach" ever.  Of course, nobody actually knows how "Bleach" decides its in a new season - the last seven years of "Bleach" somehow add up to fifteen seasons.  Being a really really short season, I can't help but feel that the conclusion was rushed and rather weak.  We build up to a big action climax... which lasts thirty seconds.  Aizen just kinda goes home after ravaging the ranks of the Soul Society, and that's it.  Tomorrow its business as usual.  Ultimately the thing they were showing us in this flashback just was not worth eight episodes.  Maybe two.  The only surprise is that Tosen used to be an alien, that's it.

Well on that rather negative note, let's move on:

Gone Finishin' -Updated-

Here's an official site notice:

I'm going on vacation to Israel today, so this will definitely be the last post for the next ten days.  For the first part of my vacation I'll be traveling with a Jewish youth group who very generously paid for my trip as long as I learned about my heritage and whatnot.  Well, in between doing that I'll also be geeking at Masada and the Wailing Wall.  Anyway, the point is, I'm officially on Internet break by the time I finish this post.  I love the Internet, it makes me happy in ways that no human lover can ever do, but I need a break, as we all do from time to time.  Eventually I'll split off from the group and stay long in Israel, at which point I can continue posting, but definitely in a limited scope.  I'll be back in full force once I return to my continent on the 26th.  Until then, I got miles and miles of archives here for you to enjoy.  This is the 250th post, by the way, so you won't lack in Blue Highwind entertainment.

So to sum up:

• No "Bleach" recap next week.  Unclear schedule as of now.
• Review for "Harry Potter 7.5", "Winnie the Pooh 5", and "Captain America 1" will all be very late, though I never am very punctual with film reviews anyway.
• Daily Thought will be all over the place.
• I won't be monitoring comments at all, so vandals can go crazy.

Also if by chance I'm killed during my travels, its been nice.  I love you all.

Update:  I'm no longer traveling with the Birthright youth group, but am still in Israel.  I'll try to get a post or two in the next ten days while I'm still here.  But I'm alive and here and ready to work again in some ways.

Cars 2

So let's begin with my usual fashion with brutal honesty:  "Cars 2" sucks.  I knew I would never like this movie, but I had no idea that Lil' Bro wouldn't like it either.  I never was going to see this movie until Lil' Bro saw a trailer for the film and looks up at me with the sweet innocent that only a three-year-old can conjure and says "I want to see 'Cars 2'...".  Then I was stuck, I had to see this goddamn movie.  Friggin' Lil' Bro.  Its not going to be long before he realizes that I can never say no to him.

Well, in the end, Lil' Bro hated this movie more than I did.  Like every kid ever, he likes "Cars 1".  However, during the entirety of "Cars 2" he didn't giggle once.  He was rolling in his seat when Kung Fu Panda was getting hit in the face with shop signs, but in this movie he found the chair to be more interesting than the movie.  Oh and "Kung Fu Panda 2" is the better movie.  By the end he started crying a bit and wanted to be gone.  He was bored the whole movie.  Lil' Bro wanted to see Lightning McQueen being cool... he didn't get it.  Instead Larry the Cable Guy is the star.  By tonight, he'll have completely forgotten about this film.

The Internet hates "Cars", and I guess for good reason.  I never bothered to see the whole thing because it was just plain boring, I made it like ten minutes before wishing I could give the bootleg disc back to the elderly Chinese lady who sold it to me in Chinatown.  But "Cars 2" is even worse than that, because its stars Larry the Cable Guy.  Yeah, "Cars 2" is actually "Larry the Cable Guy:  Dumb-Wheel Drive".

Bleach Recaps: Ep. 211, Aizen's First Inaugural Address

Wow this season went fast.  Did you know that next week is the last episode of this Turn Back the Pendulum Arc?  Right now we got Aizen giving his entire crazy explanation for everything that has happened so far.  Meaning that, yes, as I feared, this entire season only really tells us how the Visoreds were created, and it was Aizen.  Unless next week can somehow manage a good twist at the end, like Urahara suddenly making out with Aizen after the fighting is over, I really doubt this entire season will have been worth seeing at all.  Its just storyline fluff:  the whole flashback tale could have been told in two episodes if so needed.  Whatever, filler is filler, I guess.

Last week Captain 69 and Mashiro turned into Visoreds and went totally berserk and crazy.  Mashiro especially got down on a new level of break-dancing spinning-kick funk so out of this world that it cracked Rose's head right open.  The Soul Reapers were unable to stand their ground against a blazin' sweet funk so far out.  But now the weird pink-haired fat man has a plan:  use the poorly-defined magic spells of the "Bleach" universe to win!  He's only second in command of whatever the "Kido Corps" is, so he should be a master Black Mage.  And that's where the fight stands now.  For some reason the three Captains here are not using their Bankais... and nobody is bothering to explain why.  This always bugs me - its not like Goku ever held back his Super Saiyan against a tough opponent.

At the start of episode 211, Captain Shunsui is walking around for an ill-defined reason.  He spots Aizen walking around on his balcony, seemingly doing paperwork.  And... um... that's it.  I don't know why he's up or what this scene is supposed to accomplish.  Will Shunsui even effect the events to come?  Of course not.  So why are we wasting time with him!?

Transformers 3

I'm not watching this fucking movie.  Its the same as the other two, therefore it sucks.  Some people say that the franchise might be decent if Michael Bay hadn't created a world populated entirely with annoying comic reliefs and stupid gags.  In something like four hours of cinema, the first two movies combined managed to make me laugh once at a single joke:  the wheel one.  That's it.  But would the movies be watchable if the jokes were gone and they took themselves seriously?  WRONG.  Everything about these movies are bad - not just the jokes.  Not just the kid from "Even Stevens".  Everything.  "Transformers" is just fucking stupid, I'm sorry.  The robots are ugly masses of metal, utterly artless and incomprehensible masses of horrible design.  They are indistinguishable blobs of moving parts, writhing in twisted contortions so full of meaningless detail as to become unwatchable.  The camera work is jittery and furious, going out of its way to destroy comprehension.  And then the movies are too damn long!  Even if you liked the robots, the humans steal the show because they are the centerpieces of the plot.  These movies are the very bottom of the bottom, the worst of the worst.  Even "Green Lantern" got laughs out of me for being so incompetent, "Transformers" can't do that.  Its bad, but that's how its made, every second is constructed exactly as Michael Bay envisioned:  a stupid stupid movie without a tone filled with enough ugly action scene and bad jokes to barely entertain the masses.  These aren't movies, these are fucking wrestling shows.  People like it for the exact reason I hate it.  Nothing can redeem them, nobody can save them, and I will not watch another for any reason!

Review over.