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As the 50th anniversary continues, the BBC are just about to launch a new special… The 4th Doctor. Tom Baker is featured for this round, with a series of quotes. The quote out of that set I particularly like:

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don’t alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.

I suspect the Tom Baker special will be available soon, and I can’t wait to watch it. Everything they have put out for the 50th year celebration so far has been a real treat, I can’t wait for what comes next!

There doesn’t seem to be any new genre films this time, except for the very low budget Agent Beetle, so Not Fade Away is my only recommendation. However, if you have missed any of the Trek movies now might be the time to collect them up. A bunch of them are being re-released to sync up with the release of Star Trek: The Best of Both Worlds this week, along with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 3 on Blue Ray. There is another re-release that most Americans will have missed the first time around; 1988’s The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey. This time travel story is quite a bit different in that the time travelers are escaping from the Black Death in the middle ages and end up in a modern New Zealand city.

I already mentioned the Trek TV releases, the other good TV worth mentioning this week is Nova: Earth from Space, a two hour special. There are some pretty amazing images there.

In Anime, Fairy Tail: Collection One puts the entire first series in a single box set. This mystical mayhem series is in the tradition of Dirty Pair, where collateral damage costs multiple times what stopping the bad guys saves. Also new, Qwaser of Stigmata II contains all 12 episodes of the second series plus the OVA. Now that the first ancient artifact has been resolved, a new eldrich weapon needs to be tracked down, this time hidden with a member of a girls school and with serious competition hunting for it.

Patlabor The Mobile Police is re-releasing the original 7 volume OVA series that started it all. After that one Mamoru Oshii followed it up with the second OVA series, a 47 episode TV series, and three movies. All of which set his universe up to spawn the next great story series advance and cult classic, Ghost In The Shell. One of the best sci-fi cyberpunk stories in Anime it also grew into multiple movies and TV series.

These guys have way too much fun with high speed cameras and then post the results for the world to watch, although in this instance they should have thought a bit more about the effect exploding paint might have on a camera held a bit too close. Calling themselves the Slo Mo Guys I think their most recent project was filling, bouncing on, and popping a 6 foot water balloon. Any time you need a bit of silly you can stop by their channel.

Day six of recovery, and focusing on comedies this time, starting with Earth Girls Are Easy, one of the absolute classics. Starring Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans as the aliens, and Geena Davis, Michael McKean, Julie Brown, and Charles Rocket as the humans, this is one of those movies I have watched a dozen times or more and loved with every reviewing. The same is true for The 5th Element, a Luc Besson comedy starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovitch among others, which I have probably already watched two dozen times. The third for obvious reasons has to be the 1986 version of the Little Shop Of Horrors with Steve Martin as the demented dentist. Yes, all of these are very old movies, but they are all serious (OK, not actually serious, not a single one of these movies was serious, more silly really) favorites of mine which I can watch again and again with complete enjoyment each time. If you have missed even one of these, trust me when I say you need to track them down and watch them as soon as you can. Most of them are available on the free streaming services or come with your various streaming/cable accounts.