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There are a couple of interesting choices this weekend, starting with The Adjustment Bureau, written by Philip K. Dick and starring Matt Damon with Emily Blunt. There is a way your life is supposed to go, and if you step outside that path the near supernatural members of the Adjustment Bureau will step in and make corrections to reality to sync your life back to their expectations. As with every other P.K.Dick story turned into a movie, I am guaranteed to be in the audience on opening weekend. Note that the official Dick site is not kept up to date as well as it should be, so it is leaving out several other potential film projects.

Ordinarily a week with one of Phill’s stories coming out on the big screen would be enough to keep me happy, but this time around we get more. Apollo 18 was originally scheduled for this week, but has now been pushed back to April 22nd of this year. With the tag line There’s a reason we’ve never gone back to the moon, it looks quite interesting. But the universe keeps things balanced, and Rango has been moved up from the 18th to the 4th of March. This animated western epic stars Johnny Depp and is directed by Gore Verbinski (they worked together on that Pirates of the Caribbean series of films). So it looks like I have two films I need to see this weekend, and I will do my best to make both.

What If… stars Kevin Sorbo as the man who gets a glimpse of what his life would have become had he made different choices. Yes, we have seen this before in many different movies, but I think the actors this time around bring a unique perspective. Surviving the experience with these kind of glucose levels may be a bit of a challenge, of course.

Originally a PBS series episode, Pioneers of Television: Science Fiction is a documentary which explores how Star Trek, Lost in Space, and The Twilight Zone changed the way the future was viewed, while delivering modern morality plays able to explore topics normally untouchable on the small screen.

For western animation this time around there is really only one choice: ReBoot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition. I have been waiting entirely too long for this direct descendant of the original TRON to become available. This was the first fully computer generated TV animation in western countries, telling the stories of the Guardians and their battle with the Viruses they defended Mainframe from. Besides having animation of a quality that had not been seen before in a TV series, it had a unique story line filled to overflowing with concepts previously only available in a collage level computer course, but told in a way to make them understandable even to children. Out of this weeks choice, this one is the Must Have selection for me. NOTE: while the Shout Factory web site page talks about the complete series in a single box on 9 DVDs, the Amazon page lists Season 1 and 2 on 4 DVDs, and I don’t know if they are releasing two versions or had to scale back the scope of the release.

There is one new and one repackaged Anime entry this week. Shin Koihime Muso: Complete Collection involves a girl with a disease that will turn her into a cat if an antidote is not found, and a guy trying to forge a peace between the kingdoms.

Samurai Champloo – The Complete Series also becomes available this week. This re-release (the original was in 2009) is the story of friendship through combat skills, as a waitress, a Ronin, and a Samurai wander Edo-era Japan looking for a warrior who smells like sunflowers. This program completely changed the way everyone viewed Samurai movies or TV, with a hip-hop music line, a unique animation style, and some amazing fight sequences.

David Bowie’s Space oddity is one of the truly definitive Sci-Fi songs, bordering as it does both inner (mental aberrations and chemical dependencies) and outer (rocket ships and planetary exploration) space. So it should be no surprise that even though Bowie wrote and performed this masterpiece originally, many other artists from many other countries have paid tribute to it over the years. I figured I should present a few of my favorites, just to make sure awareness of these artists got whatever small increase my mentioning them could induce. First off, from Japan, we have Atsushi Sakurai, with his brilliant 2004 live presentation:

Next up, we have the short version of Emilie Simon’s amazing variation. This one has what may be my favorite rhythm structure of any of these, even if the editing that shortened the length cut off noticeable chunks of the song. Of course, you can always hear the full version here.

Bet you didn’t know there was a Natalie Merchant version, did you?

For comparison, here is Bowie’s first live presentation at an awards ceremony for this world class song…

I mentioned recently that a live stage version of Doctor Horrible was going live in Las Vegas. That is not the only local it will be showing up in, of course, although it will probably have a much longer run there than in most places. I just heard that it will be presented in Washington by the Landless Theatre Company at the DC Arts Center in Adams Morgan. That is an easy 10 minute walk from the Woodley Park-Adams Morgan metro stop, and will run from March 3rd through the 29th. Since that is also one of the two best metro stops to hit the Washington Zoo you might as well head out early, visit the pandas, and grab a quality dinner at one of a number of excellent restaurants in the area before the show.

The SFWA has announced this years Nebula Award Nominees, and a bunch of them are online now for your reading pleasure. The Awards themselves will be handed out at the Nebula Weekend event taking place from the 19th to the 22nd of May at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC.

One of the other awards given out at the event is The Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, and for me this one is an almost impossible choice. There is one TV episode on the list, Doctor Who’s Vincent and the Doctor, two live action movies, Inception and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and three animated feature length films, Despicable Me where the Minions owned the movie, How to Train Your Dragon from the Dreamworks team, and Toy Story 3 from Pixar. I don’t have a prayer of choosing the best one; I love them all!