Some Quick Reviews

Maria Full of Grace- If you read up on Movie Critics' Reviews alot, you've probably heard about this one. Maria is a poor girl from Columbia who lives in an overcrowded house with her sister, her sister's constantly sick baby, her mom, and her grandma. She works a crap job at a Rose Factory, and all her wages go to support her family. And she's knocked up and doesn't love the father. When the opportunity presents itself for her to get a better life, she takes it. Unfortunately, the opportunity involves swallowing 60 little packets of drugs and flying to New York. "Maria" is fairly simple and straightfoward in its storytelling, and its strength comes from the courage of its central character and the tension presented as she tries to complete the drug shipment. Despite the fact that she is performing an immoral act, you can't help but have sympathy for a character who just wants a better life and knows that this is the only way. It's definately worth a watch.

Shonen Jump for January finally arrived. I picked it up at Buehler's Buy Low (local grocery store chain for those of you uninitiated) of all places. Anyway, I agree with Shafe, the preview of "Legendz" was butt. Just another Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/Duel Masters/Digimon clone. Ugh. Speaking of which, Yu-Gi-Oh returns (Booo!!!), except they've skipped over a ton of issues, and now the story makes very little sense. Bah. "Yu-Yu Hakusho" is a decent read, but as usual the art is butt. "Dragonball Z" is always top notch, definately better than the anime. Nothing really important happened in "Shaman King" this month. "Hikaru no Go" was interesting, but I gotta admit that this series is starting to wear thin just because I have no idea how to play Go (I need to get Dan to teach me sometime...). With both Naruto and Sasuke unconscious, it's up to Sakura and guest ninja Rock Lee to fight off the dreaded Sound Ninjas in "Naruto". Great action, and the Sound Ninjas turn out to be incredibly dangerous foes after all. Still, I wish Naruto would wake the hell up. Jeez, the main characters been out cold for two straight issues...

Now for the Main Event.

We got two installments of "One Piece" this issue. Luffy, Sanji, Chef Zef, and the Fighting Cooks of the Baratie restaraunt have to fight off the desperate cutthroats of Don Krieg's Pirate crew. A new villian, the Invincible Pearl, is introduced. I gotta say, in the short time I've been reading One Piece I've seen a lotta strange, goofy villians, but Pearl definately takes the cake. I'm not kidding, this guy's so odd, you gotta see him to believe him. Anyway, this issue rocks hardcore, as we finally get to see Sanji's awesome footwork, Luffy gets back into the battle, Krieg pulls a couple of new weapons out of nowhere, and we even get to see Chef Zef kick a little ass. As usual, the only flaw with One Piece is that I want to read more after I've finished it. Aaaugh!!!!