The Clone Wars: Hunt for Ziro

My friends and I are watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Every Tuesday, we will be featuring an episode from the series which began in 2008 (as opposed to the one that started in 2003).  All are welcome to join us for all or parts of the fun.

Episode: "Hunt for Ziro"
Series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Season 3, Episode 9
Original Air Date: November 12, 2010

via Wookieepedia

This week's episode is a sequel to the first season episode "Hostage Crisis" whereas last week's was a prequel to same.  Now, I have Wookieepedia to keep me on top of this serpentine temporal path but how was one supposed to know during the original airing?  Was there an explanation provided beforehand?

Cad Bane has broken Ziro the Hutt out of prison but the Hutt Council is not entirely satisfied.  Ziro has his own power game to play.  He is hiding compromising records of the Hutts' various nefarious adventures.  The Hutts keep him imprisoned until he coughs up the goods but his ex-girlfriend, lounge crooner Sy Snootles, springs him free.  The Jedi are after him, too.

"Hunt for Ziro" provides the first Clone Wars appearance for Quinlan Vos, a popular Expanded Universe character first introduced in the Star Wars: Republic comic book series.  Quin, not unlike Anakin, is a more free-spirited Jedi, even quoting The Big Lebowski's Dude.  The episode tends to get high marks from the critics, partly for Quin's inclusion.  My favorite part was a fight scene between Obi-Wan, Quin and Bane.

via Wookieepedia

Quin was voiced by Al Rodrigo.  Rodrigo was born in New York City.  He graduated from Syracuse with a theatre major.  Film credits include The Glass Shield, The Birdcage and House of Sand and Fog.  Beyond Clone Wars, he has had guest appearances on such TV shows as ARLI$$, The West Wing and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

via Behind the Voice Actors

If you would care to join us for all or part of our travels, sign on to the list below.  Please visit the other participants today.  Next week: "Heroes on Both Sides."

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: June 2016 Blog List

 

Greetings to all!  I hope you'll join us for the next installment of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, an online gathering of bloggers who love books.  The next meeting is set for Friday, June 24th.  If you're interested, please sign on to the link list at the end of this post.

The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us:

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: May 2016

Welcome one and all to the Cephalopod Coffeehouse, a cozy gathering of book lovers, meeting to discuss their thoughts regarding the works they enjoyed most over the previous month.  Pull up a chair, order your cappuccino and join in the fun.  If you wish to add your own review to the conversation, please sign on to the link list at the end of my post.

Title: Why Fantasy Football Matters (and Our Lives Do Not)

Authors: Erik Barmack and Max Handelman

via Simon & Schuster

Why Fantasy Football Matters is Barmack's and Handelman's fictional, yet based on real experiences, account of a fantasy football league called the Bush League.  I haven't played fantasy football in a couple years but I am well acquainted with the geekmacho atmosphere.  The Bush League has the boys-in-a-clubhouse feel one would expect: no girls allowed.  Except there is one woman in the league and, of course, she routinely beats the pants off of the rest of them.

The book is very funny, plenty of laugh out loud moments.  The Bush League has a few eccentric quirks.  For instance, they set their draft order by selecting goldfish and seeing which ones survive the longest in a tank with two hungry piranhas.  The book was written in 2006.  The hobby, already popular, has exploded since thanks to the Internet.  The Bush League in the book is totally offline which seems downright archaic now.   I enjoyed the book, though it's not as well written as Mark St. Amant's Committed, reviewed here.

The book has rekindled my own interest, but only to a point.  I was quite an avid fantasy player for a few years and even blogged about it.  But the other day, Orangeman asked me how my fantasy baseball team was doing and was surprised when I told him I didn't have one this year.  He seemed keen to try again sometime so maybe football this year?  One reason why my interest waned is that the social aspect of the hobby was unsatisfactory.  There was loads of banter during the online drafts but little to none for the rest of the season.  If we could combine fantasy football with watching actual NFL games together as the Bush League does, that might be more fun.  Maybe.  Or maybe I really am better off with other hobbies.

Please join us and share your own review of your best read from the past month.  This month's link list is below.  I'll keep it open until the end of the day.  I'll post June's tomorrow.  Meetings are the last  Friday of each month.  Next gathering is June 24th.

The Clone Wars: Evil Plans

My friends and I are watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Every Tuesday, we will be featuring an episode from the series which began in 2008 (as opposed to the one that started in 2003).  All are welcome to join us for all or parts of the fun.

Episode: "Evil Plans"
Series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Season 3, Episode 8
Original Air Date: November 5, 2010

via Wookieepedia

While helping Padmé prepare for a state banquet, Anakin sends C-3PO and R2-D2 out for last minute supplies.  First Threepio, then Artoo are abducted by Cad Bane's henchmen.  Bane is after the floor plans for the Senate building, which he assumes are stored in the droids' memory banks.

Bane's machinations are interesting but overall, "Evil Plans" is not a very good episode.  The writing is weak, much of Threepio's dialogue being particularly clumsy.  Obviously, this droid pair are essential to the Star Wars saga.  Artoo is a frequent plot device and Threepio provides comic relief and translation, an underappreciated element of any science fiction universe.  But Clone Wars stories fall flat when they rely too heavily on the droids as protagonists.

However, there was some nice Coruscant world-building this week.  Bane's droid 360 separates Threepio and Artoo by convincing the latter to visit the Droid Spa.  Artoo enjoys an oil bath and de-carbonization buffing while his friend is tortured for information by Bane.  The spa attendants SN-D1 and BO-N1, droids themselves, are both voiced by Angelique Perrin.

SN-D1 via Wookieepedia

BO-N1 via Wookieepedia

Perrin was born in Brooklyn, New York, though she was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina.  In addition to her acting, she has done extensive work as a radio announcer in Los Angeles.  Perrin is also the voice of Adi Gallia.  She performed in seven Clone Wars episodes overall.

via Behind The Voice Actors

If you would care to join us for all or part of our travels, sign on to the list below.  Please visit the other participants today.  Next week: "Hunt for Ziro."

 

Family Movie Night: Trouble in Paradise

Title: Trouble in Paradise
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Original Release: 1932
Choice: My Wife's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

via Wikipedia

Trouble in Paradise is the latest installment in our family's ongoing screwball comedy series.  Lily (Miriam Hopkins) and Gaston Montescu (Herbert Marshall) are professional thieves in Venice who fall in love while trying to scam each other.  They team up and head to Paris where they target Madame Mariette Colet (Kay Francis), a perfume mogul.  Monescu becomes Colet's personal secretary and, of course, she falls in love with him.  Things really get complicated as Monescu develops feelings for her, too.  Meanwhile, Colet's other suitors grow suspicious.

One thing I've been noticing a lot in older films is the use of miniatures, especially in town- and cityscapes.  It makes sense.  The film industry of the 1930s and '40s probably didn't have big helicopter budgets.  Building panoramas was undoubtedly cheaper and easier.  George Lucas gets lots of credit for the use of miniatures in Star Wars but it's good to be reminded that he was hardly the first.

I was also interested to learn of this movie's influence on Wes Anderson's work.  Both Anderson and Ralph Feinnes have both mentioned it as an inspiration for Grand Budapest Hotel, a film that's getting a lot of love in the Mock Squid Soup film society these days. 

The Clone Wars: Assassin

My friends and I are watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Every Tuesday, we will be featuring an episode from the series which began in 2008 (as opposed to the one that started in 2003).  All are welcome to join us for all or parts of the fun.

Episode: "Assassin"
Series: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Season 3, Episode 7
Original Air Date: October 22, 2010

via Wookieepedia

"Assassin" is an Ahsoka story and a particularly important one for developing her relationship with Padmé.  The padawan has been assigned to protect the senator on a trip to Alderaan.  During the visit, Ahsoka has visions of assassination attempts by the bounty hunter, Aurra Sing.  In this case, Jedi intuition proves to be all too accurate.  Padmé shows Ahsoka a great deal of trust and patience in this story, suggesting an almost sisterly bond between the two.

via Wookieepedia

Jedi librarian Jocasta Nu makes a brief appearance early in the story, her third of four Clone Wars appearances.  The character first appeared in Attack of the Clones, played by Alethea McGrath.  In The Clone Wars, she is voiced by Flo DiRe.

via Avatar Wiki

Flo Di Re appeared in 1998's Mighty Joe Young.  Earlier in her career she had guest spots on several popular television shows including The Facts of Life, Murder She Wrote and Seinfeld.

If you would care to join us for all or part of our travels, sign on to the list below.  Please visit the other participants today.  Next week: "Evil Plans."

 

On the Coffee Table: Logicomix

Title: Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth
Writers: Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou
Artists: Alecos Papadatos and Anne di Donna

via Wikipedia

Logicomix is a graphic novel biography of philosopher/mathematician Bertrand Russell.  It's an ambitious work, weaving in and out of various spots in the timeline: Russell's early professional life, a lecture years later as Britain was debating whether or not to enter World War II and the 21st century Athens of the book's creators.  The artwork is excellent, including some interesting temporal play within panels.

I have to admit that most of the philosophical and mathematical discussion was over my head.  My wife is a big fan of symbolic logic so I think she enjoyed it more.  Russell himself, however, is a compelling figure.  His encounters with mental illness in both his family and his profession shape much of his personal story.  His intellectual brilliance did not extend to his personal life, in which he was quite a disastrous husband and father.  The story's ultimate philosophical conclusion is a satisfying one.