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Something to Watch: DVDs

The leader for fantasy movies this week is Clash of the Titans. While I thought the movie took itself a little too seriously, it was still a fun flic. A much more serious topic is explored in the science fiction film Repo Men, where it doesn’t bode well to be late with your payments for your body parts. For problems of a planetary scale, there is Ray Bradbury’s Chrysalis. Based on a short story by the famous author, it explores a theme of ecological catastrophe and human evolution. Out of the foreign films this week, Just Another Pandora’s Box caught my attention by the title alone, but on investigation it looks like this comedy/fantasy has enough laugh power to be worth the ride. Finally, Welcome to Earth made the film fest rounds, and even got mentioned for a few awards, so it should be worth checking out, in a direct-to-DVD kind of way.

SG-U Stargate Universe: 1.5 brings us the second half of season 1. While I have been really enjoying the series, the release style annoys me tremendously, so I will not be adding this to my collection until I can find it on sale. Like Battlestar Galactica before it, they have only released half the season but are asking a full seasons worth of money for it (it lists at $39.95). This is not a trend I am willing to support with my wallet. Both Flash Forward and Eureka also released half season box sets, but with a list of $29.95, most outlets sold them for $20, or half of what a full season goes for; that’s a price scheme I can live with. A 1972 British TV series not previously available in the US also comes out on Tuesday: The Black Arrow. My first thought was a variation on the Green Arrow, but it looks to be a bit more Robin Hoody.

The Machinima legend returns with Red Vs Blue: Reconstruction, season 6 and 7 of the series. After being on opposite sides for so long during the Blood Gulch era (seasons one through five, previously released), they now team up to solve a new problem. For new Anime there is only one real choice this week: Hell Girl Two Mirrors: Collection 2, which finishes up the 2nd season. I look forward to finding out how Hell’s debt collector has her own fate resolved. As usual, there are a few classics being re-released in reduced cost box set editions, like Love Hina and Magic Knight Rayearth

STILL more Comic-Con, Flash Forward

I am sure I will have to add to this when later today actually happens, but I had to mention this now. The wack jobs from the Westboro Baptist Church (the idiots who protest at the funerals of America’s fallen war heroes if they think they might be anything other than hetero) decided to protest at Comic-Con this week, since everyone attending was obviously strange in some fashion (and proud of it!). This definitely tops my What Were They Thinking? list for this month, and possibly this year. I am betting they were not ready for the spontaneous counter protest that immediately broke out, with signs that included All Glory to the Hypno-Toad (and another Futurama reference with a cosplay Bender holding a sign saying Kill All Humans), the Marvelite Odin is God, and the classic When I ride through the Valley of Death I Will Fear No Evil, for the Dark Knight is by my side. The folks at Comics Alliance posted a great photo spread, and many thanks to Space Gypsies for the heads up on this one.

Word is out that Flash Forward might be picked up by Starz, and the series continued! Keeping my fingers crossed. If true, that makes two rescued properties on the Starz network, since they signed a contract with the BBC to do season 6 of Torchwood; glad that network is on my channel lineup.

Meanwhile, the best interview I have yet seen about this event comes from Geek Girls Network, where they talk with a major player who attended almost 20 years ago, and shared some critical perspective. And because I liked that one, I had to go for the Comic Con Gurls, seen below.

And just because I couldn’t resist, the True Blood season 3 trailer…

Comic-Con coverage abounds!

It is time once more for Comic-Con in San Diego, where advance word will be released on all the good stuff coming out over the next year. Everybody will be covering it, including traditional TV coverage from both G4TV and MTV. They will also be covering them on their websites, of course. A few other websites who have had great coverage of the event in recent years include io9, MSN’s Parallel Universe, the gamer gang from Kotaku, and all the Friends of Ugo, of which there are many. While it would be nice to be there, at least there will be news!

Bombshells from the Sky delivers

This series looked to be a Sci-Fi Alien Cat Girl boy-grows-up chasing after her kind of story from what I read before it started. I only have the first episode to base my opinion on so far, but in that first episode it completely changed the ground rules 3 times. It opened up as an action/adventure with an exciting combat sequence with a spaceship crash, and hints that the weapons of choice may not be the weapons we need. Then it went through the opening title sequence, and suddenly we were in a Fanboy Fantasy, where our hero wakes up next to a mostly naked Alien Cat Girl, and other girls and women of his acquaintance show up on his doorstep to hang out with him and make obscene comments. Just when you feel comfortable with that analysis, you discover that every woman in the story, with the possible exception of the Cat Girl from Another Planet, has their very own hidden agenda, and the tenor of the series changes again. Asobi ni Ikuyo: Bombshells from the Sky is off to an interesting start.

Even if the writers blew every surprise for the series in the first 23 minutes of the program, there is more. I counted no less than 5 inside jokes for Sci-Fi geeks in this episode alone (keep your ears open, and your eyes should check the background every so often), including the classic that everyone calls their home planet Earth, or Dirt, or some equivalent word that means “standing on land”, followed by references to and a depiction of the Babylon5 Grey Council, just to start.

There were short bursts of Anime tropes as well, like the holographically projected Kawaii Navigation System that leaped full blown from Cat Girls bell dangling from her choke collar. Actually, that alone was two tropes; another was Cat Girl in heaven because they let her eat her fill then snooze in the sun, just like a real cat.

I have more points to talk about, but hey, this is just the first story. If the rest of these are a fraction as good, congrats to the creators.