Adam Selvidge's Website Blog

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“The Pitt” Review

The Pitt: Created by R. Scott Gemmill. With Noah Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa. The daily lives of healthcare professionals in a Pittsburgh hospital as they juggle personal crises, workplace politics, and the emotional toll of treating critically ill patients, revealing the resilience required in their noble calling. I’ve always thought that a 15 hour shift at a hospital was ridiculous, dangerous, and irresponsible, but it was a clever gimmick for this show to show an entire shift of a trauma center in Pittsburg. I have it on good authority that while this is a highly realistic series...

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“Harley Quinn Season 5” Review

Harley Quinn: Created by Justin Halpern, Dean Lorey, Patrick Schumacker. With Kaley Cuoco, Lake Bell, Alan Tudyk, Ron Funches. The series focuses on a single Harley Quinn, who sets off to make it on her own in Gotham City. I’m not sure if the series is just bad now or if my tastes in comic book adaptations isn’t in line with the mainstream, but I’ve always thought that Brainiac storylines were goofy and barely acceptable for a Superman tale, but now I know they’re completely out of line with what I want from a Harley Quinn television series. The entire...

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“Starchaser: The Legend of Orin” Review

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin: Directed by Steven Hahn. With Joe Colligan, Carmen Argenziano, Noelle North, Anthony De Longis. Set on the subterranean Mine-World, a band of human worker are treated like slaves under the power of the evil overlord Zygon until one, Orin, unearths the hilt of a mythical sword that only he can master. Escaping the planet, he runs into the rogue smuggler Dagg and a pair of helpful droids and the princess, who all team up to return to the Mine-World with a plan to defeat Zygon and free Orin’s enslaved people. Starchaser: The Legend of Orin...

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“Porco Rosso” Review

Porco Rosso: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Shûichirô Moriyama, Tokiko Katô, Bunshi Katsura VI, Tsunehiko Kamijô. In 1930s Italy, a veteran World War I pilot is cursed to look like an anthropomorphic pig. I went into Porco Rosso with modest expectations, not entirely sure what to make of a film about a World War I fighter pilot who, as part of the story, is cursed to live in the body of a pig. What I found, though, was a surprisingly rich and layered experience—one that blended whimsical fantasy with poignant historical context, and mixed lighthearted action with a deeper emotional...

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“Kiki’s Delivery Service” Review

Kiki’s Delivery Service: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma, Kappei Yamaguchi, Keiko Toda. Along with her black cat Jiji, Kiki settles in a seaside town and starts a high-flying delivery service. Here begins her magical encounter with independence and responsibility, making lifelong friends and finding her place in the world. This is the movie that actually got the ball rolling on my desire to watch all the Studio Ghibli films, as one of my coworkers had a stain glass mural in her window that features Jiji all over the place, which I thought was cute and whimsical...

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“Daredevil: Born Again” Review

Daredevil: Born Again: Created by Matt Corman, Chris Ord. With Charlie Cox, Margarita Levieva, Vincent D’Onofrio, Genneya Walton. Matt Murdock finds himself on a collision course with Wilson Fisk when their past identities begin to emerge. A fantastic first entry into the MCU, it does well enough picking up the threads of the prior DD Netflix series and treats itself as serious as I would like it to, which is to say: Matt is morally torn about his decisions and has huge decisions to make, makes some of them incorrectly, and is in turn torn about his decisions. It’s all...

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“Robot Carnival” Review

Robot Carnival: Directed by Atsuko Fukushima, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Kôji Morimoto, Takashi Nakamura, Yasuomi Umetsu, Manabu Ôhashi, Hidetoshi Ômori, Katsuhiro Ôtomo. With Kôji Moritsugu, Yayoi Maki, Keiko Hanagata, Kumiko Takizawa. A collection of short stories, made by different animators with “robot” as the working title. This is on Amazon Prime and I fully have no idea how it ended up in front of me, but it was such a fantastic experience that I’m happy it was in my queue, or suggestion list or whatever the mess of Prime lists actually is. It’s a collection of short stories that range...

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“My Neighbor Totoro” Review

My Neighbor Totoro: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Shigesato Itoi, Sumi Shimamoto. When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby. Decidedly lighter fair in comparison to Grave of the Fireflies or even Valley of the Wind, there’s still some extremely emotionally charged moments that really had my heart getting ready to break. I was luckily saved from that sad fate by a well timed catbus, for which I’m grateful that were introduced to earlier in the film, because as a...

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“Princess Mononoke” Review

Princess Mononoke: Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, John DiMaggio. While seeking to cure himself of a curse, young warrior Ashitaka stumbles into a conflict between the people of Iron Town and Princess Mononoke, a girl raised by wolves, who will stop at nothing to prevent the destruction of her home. I’m still on my journey to watch all the Studio Ghibli movies in order, but this one was at my local theater and was supposed to be a great showing, but it was in the crummy IMAX seats that kill my back after...

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“Grave of the Fireflies” Review

Grave of the Fireflies: Directed by Isao Takahata. With Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara, Akemi Yamaguchi. A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II. I already knew what this movie was about, so when it came time to watch it on my journey to see all of Studio Ghibli, I hesitated for a moment. Was I ready for a beautiful, yet heavy film about the final days of World War 2? I thought I was, but I was honestly expecting it to be told through allegory, much like the first two...