Gravity is the Sci-Fi film of choice this week, but there are several other options. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is hitting theaters for an extremely short lived run, but this time it will be in IMAX 3D. This is not a trend that will end anytime soon; all the company owning the movie has to pay for is the 3D and/or IMAX upgrade processing, and they get a product they can stick in theaters and on 3D Blue Ray that they already know people will pay for, based on sales the first time around. I think my favorite to get this treatment so far was the original 1939 The Wizard Of Oz, which was quite amazing to see on the big screen. I am not a horror fan, so I would have forgotten Dracula 3D right away if it weren’t for Rutger Hauer being in the movie. Finally, Metallica: Through the Never is a truly surreal experience with a world-class selection of camera work. It is basically a concert interspersed with an epic journey undertaken by a roadie through a Mad Max-like environment.
The directors cut of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec becomes available this week. I love this movie, which is the first in a series based on the graphic novels by Jacques Tardi that Luc Besson is making, but I find myself a bit annoyed. I just bought the blue-ray American release regular version when it came out in August, and now I have to decide if I want to pay for it again just to get the new version. At least it’s not as bad as Bladerunner; I have 4 different versions of that film, released in different years. This is the End is an apocalyptic comedy with a decent cast about the end of the world in Hollywood. Dead Before Dawn is a horror comedy about a bunch of clumsy students who bring a curse down on themselves, and is also Canada’s first live action 3D film. I missed both of these in the theaters, so this is another chance to see them.
The western animation choice this week is The Croods, a stone age adventure comedy from the Dreamworks team. There are also two old new releases, rendered into 3D and released on disk after their recent returns to the movie theaters. The animated The Little Mermaid, and the 1939 live action classic The Wizard Of Oz both live on in new 3D incarnations.
In TV, season one of the new version of Beauty and the Beast hits the shelves. You just have time to re-watch it before season 2 hits the small screen the following Monday. Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited 5-8 continues the 50th anniversary look back at the original Time Lords who had that part. Besides the 20 minute retrospectives of each Doctor, you also get one of the best classic episodes they were involved with. Peter Davison has Earthshock, Colon Baker has Vengeance on Varos, Sylvester McCoy gets Remembrance of the Daleks, and obviously Paul McGann gets Doctor Who: The Movie.
In Anime, Tiger & Bunny the Movie: The Beginning tells how Wild Tiger (Kotetsu T. Kaburagi) and Barnaby “Bunny” Brooks Jr. ended up as a Giant Robot Superhero team, defending their city in company endorsed Mecha’s (think NASCAR vehicles sponsorship logos) while having their battles being shown on TV. Somewhere between the WWF and Indie 500 I think. The complete series Sankarea: Undying Love also comes out this week, a simple story about a boy who develops a potion to reanimate his dead cat, and the depressed girl he meets who assumes the stuff in the bottle is poisonous, drinks it, and jumps off a cliff. When she wakes up as a zombie she finally starts to really live, but now the couple falls in love and realize they have more than a few problems to solve if they want the relationship to flourish.
Hakuoki: Dawn of the Shinsengumi Season 3 is actually the prequel to the previous two seasons, telling the story of how the Tokugawa Shogunate first sent Ronin, or Masterless Samurai, into Kyoto in 1863 to put down the rebellion. This is a historical epic, but as with anything involving both Samurai and Ninja, there is a serious spiritual/combat powers influence which most of us in the west interpret most comfortably as fantasy. Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom is the title for this season.
There are also a couple of re-releases you might want to check out if you missed them the first time around. Aria the Animation: Season 1 is about a girl who emigrates to a water world where she can pilot gondolas. The fact that the planet is Mars in the year 2417 tells you just how good humanity got at Terraformimg by then. Godannar is a classic Giant Mecha/Alien Invasion series with some serious interpersonal twists. Goh Saruwatari used his Dannar (giant robot) to save a girl child from the aliens, but lost his combat partner and girlfriend to them in the process. Years later when she came of age he married the girl he saved, and she is also now a combat pilot of the Dannars. Her mother runs the base they fight out of and is Goh’s boss as well as Mother-in-Law, and the aliens are back attacking humanity all over again. When they defeat one of the alien combat vessels they also recover Goh’s old partner/girlfriend, who has been brain wiped, and bring her home to live with them. After that, it starts getting really strange.
This is your Traditional Irish music, played by a band composed of Japanese Death Metal musicians with a Zydeco drummer. If they actually lived in the UK, they would have had a flat next door to the Pogues. That is the shortest way I could get across the idea of what their music is like, but you won’t really know until you listen to them yourself. And maybe not even then. The first track is Drunken Pirates, the second is Polka/Ill Weeds Grow Apace, and we finish with Rascal Trail.
I want to mention a new book by a new author, Shattered Dreams, book one in the Luna’s Children series, by Melissa Kay Clarke. I admit I sometimes read romantic/action/adventure fantasy (particularly ones with a Steampunk sensibility, or Dragons and other supernatural creatures), and I quite enjoyed this one. In the interest of Full Disclosure I have to admit that in part this was because I got to be one of the Beta Readers and give my feedback, and then see what changed because of the input. But I genuinely enjoyed the story, liked several of the characters, and found the concepts behind the culture quite intriguing. I am looking forward to checking out the next book in the series, because this is off to quite a promising start.
I read an insane amount of books, and I have decided I need to start blogging about them here. Not in an every-week kind of way, but just when I am reading something I really like and want to share. I have posted about a bunch of favorite authors, and mentioned favorite books that got turned into movies or TV shows, and book-centric conventions and awards. But I don’t think I have usually talked about the books themselves. This is something I intend to correct, as there are a lot of excellent works out there.
Monty Python as filmed by Michael Bay is the best way I know to describe this video edit. It underscores the difference between films from two completely different decades, and the changes in film making between those times. It also says a lot about how a good editor can make a trailer say anything they want it to, no matter what the original source material has as its actual content. Seeing this and knowing the movie this came from, I begin to understand how I got suckered in to a few films that wasted both my time and money. So if you decided to make your own trailer for one of your favorite films, what would it look like?
The world just can’t seem to have enough Gundam, and the next series to launch is GunPla Builder, a tribute to all who build and fight the Gundam Plastic Model class of Bots. It is coming to TV Tokyo this October. Thanks to Danny Choo for the heads up on this one.
