For silly action fun we have Drive Angry, in which Nick Cage escapes from hell and goes on a road trip. There is one interesting classic collection being released as a box set this week: the Stanley Kubrick: Essential Collection. It has nine films, including genre favorites Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining. Of course, you can pick up the individual programs for 7 to 9 dollars each, but if you don’t have any of them this could be a cost effective way to go, especially since the non-genre films have the same high quality.
There is a miniseries I absolutely had to mention, Phil Plait’s Bad Universe. Phil has been blogging for years under the heading Bad Astronomy, which he started to post corrections to the bad physics and astronomy he saw in the science fiction TV shows and movies he otherwise loved to watch. He was somewhat qualified for this, being an astronomer with ten years working on the Hubble Space Telescope, an astronomy educator, and on the side wrote some books on the topic as well. The Discovery Channel brought his blog on board and put the programs together, but you can still see the original Bad Astronomy here.
There are two good entries in the TV series category this time around, starting with season three of True Blood. This gives you plenty of time to catch up or review the season before season 4 kicks off on June 26th. Or you can re-watch all three seasons with HBO GO, which allows HBO subscribers to watch a vast library of their series and movies on your computer, ipad, ipod, or android phone or tablet any time you like (and anywhere you have a connection). The best bit is if you have HBO with your cable or dish service it just comes with it for no additional charge, yet another VAR (Value Added Resource) all the media services are adding to their arsenals to keep their subscribers happy. And did I mention, the George R.R. Martin series, Game of Thrones, has exclusive interactive features with every episode you can’t get from your TV set? Trust me, if you are paying for HBO anyways, you really want to add this functionality. Unless you have it already from your cable or satellite provider, since they are also in the category of media services madly implementing portable viewing with Apps and websites for no additional charge to make their product more appealing and keep you as a customer.
The other TV series is SG-U: Stargate Universe: The Complete Final Season, which is a bit sad when you realize the entire cast found out the show was cancelled when they received tweets about it. You can, of course, also watch episodes online.
There are likewise two Anime choices worth noting. Guin Saga – Part 2 continues the story for the final 13 episodes as the leopard-headed gladiator and his two young royal charges continue to unravel the mystery that has plunged their original land and this new sorcery-infested local into war. Mazinkaiser Skl is an old school mecha combat series OVA that was an offshoot of the Mazinger series. It has that whole Go Nagai 1970s early Saturday morning cartoon thing going for it, so I don’t expect to see it racking up any amazing sales records (it won’t be coming home with me, as an example). But it was a major entry into the evolution of the Giant Robo genre, and is worth watching just for its historic value.